Ann Marsh

Wealth manager Peter J. Eichler Jr., once had more than $10 billion in assets under management. Following his RIA’s bankruptcy filing in November, however, the SEC has filed a lawsuit against Eichler and Aletheia Research and Management for alleged securities fraud and for allegedly violating fiduciary duties to clients and to the funds Aletheia managed.

A new generation of business students will soon be trained in investment and wealth management skills at a new Charles Schwab Trading and Technology Lab at the University of California at Irvine. The lab wilkl be the cornerstone of a new 78,000-square-foot building to be built within the University's Paul Merage School of Business.

Financial services compliance technology firm RegEd is offering clients a social media library containing pre-approved content, as well as a series of dictionaries, or lexicons, of words or phrases to support compliance.

The current economic recovery, while slow, is on track. Fiscal cliff fears have been grossly exaggerated, to the detriment of investors and planners. And sometimes there’s an upside to a modest recession.

The SEC has already missed its end-of-the-year deadline on laying down rules for so-called crowdfunding of new companies. But FINRA has jumped into the regulatory void, issuing a voluntary form for prospective funding portals.

Continuing its rapid expansion, CapTrust Financial Advisors, a large Raleigh, S.C. registered that serves private and institutional investors, acquired Freedom One Financial Group. Freedom One provides retirement plan and investment advisory services to companies in emerging markets.

Advisors continue to flock to the RIA business model, making it the fastest-growing corner of the financial services industry. However, even as they do, more than ever are hanging onto commission income, despite the risks it poses to acting as full fiduciaries.

For RIAs who want to ensure clients that their firm will endure to serve their children and grandchildren, a robust internal succession plan is critical. One way to do that is to eliminate outside ownership conflicts, argues the founder and CEO of one leading RIA firm.

In the most recent move by a large firm to help planners solve pressing succession issues, Cetera Advisor Networks is now offering its regional directors, s well as other small- to mid-sized broker dealers, the opportunity to sell their businesses to Cetera.

After a wild ride toward the fiscal cliff, many financial advisors now say the frenzy was worth it -- even if clients' worst fears failed to materialize.

“It has been a good niche for us,” says Russ Crosson, the president and CEO of RIA Ronald Blue & Co. “Clients come to us because they want to be good stewards.”

More than 100 women advisors are gathering Monday in downtown Boston for SourceMedia's Women Advisors Forum to network with successful peers and learn leading strategies for attracting female clients, practice management, rethinking retirement and more.

Grabbing a top executive from one of the world's premier technology companies, LPL Financial has nabbed a top technology officer from Dell Inc. to help lead the independent broker-dealer's technology effort.

When Atlanta-based Ronald Blue & Co., one of the country's largest RIAs, was building its internal succession plan, the company’s CEO hit upon a necessary precondition. “You have to have a mission that’s compelling enough to make sure that your clients are taken care of after you are gone,” says Russ Crosson, the company’s president and CEO. “The firm is bigger than any one individual.”

Five years ago, only about 15% of new clients came in over the transom, says the chief executive of one leading RIA. Today, that number has grown to 25% to 35% -- with many of those prospects specifically looking for independent advice.

In the RIA space, rapid consolidation is driving firms to merge, acquire and seek larger partners. In 10 to 20 years, many predict a series of giant $100 billion-AUM firms will emerge to dominate the market. So what does the future hold for smaller firms?

Brinton Eaton, a Madison, N.J., based wealth manager with $700 million in assets under management, has joined Chicago-based Mariner Wealth Advisors, bringing the latter’s AUM to $6.3 billion.

With RIA balance sheets healthier, banks once again are taking an interest in RIAs, which are growing as much as 50% more rapidly than wirehouses.

To foster the evolution of financial planning as a widely accepted and understood profession, NAPFA announced that, starting Jan. 1, it will only accept the CFP designation for anyone applying to become NAPFA-registered planners

“[A] segment of wealth managers appear to live in denial, clinging to investment methodologies that have patently failed twice over the past decade and are likely to fall short again,” the authors of a white paper accompanying the survey results wrote.