An ultrahigh net worth practice advising on $1 billion in client assets left Mariner Wealth Advisors to start its own registered investment advisory firm with Tru Independence.
Financial advisor Pamela Perskie of Ewing, New Jersey-based Seven Mile Advisory works with about 25 families that include executives from real estate and private equity companies, musicians and professional basketball players from the National Basketball Association. She picked
Firms offering support capabilities to RIAs are racing to identify top independent advisors who could be their clients in areas like custody, technology, trade clearing and other operations.
"I really needed more independence; I needed to be the one driving the bus," Perskie said in an interview. "I had been talking to Tru for a while. They could really support things that I'm doing while allowing me to have the specialization and make the decisions."
Perskie had spent roughly a year with Mariner after
"We are fortunate to have crossed paths with Pamela in the time she spent with [Mariner RIA subsidiary] Mariner Platform Solutions, and we extend her our sincerest congratulations as she leads Seven Mile Advisory to its next phase of growth," Mariner spokeswoman Christa Spencer said in a statement.
Similar to RIA vendors
The firm seeks to "deliver a platform that makes the complex simple" to support "the next wave of advisors," Tru President Amit Dogra, who
"They're up to something in their business," Dogra said. "They're not settling for the status quo. They're looking for more in a partner, and they're looking to do more for their clients."
Tru does business with five different custodians, and Perskie's new RIA uses Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments. As the largest and probably most important group of service providers to RIAs, custodians like those two firms carry out trades, hold assets and fill other vital needs for the advisory practices.
Smaller custodians such as
"The RIAs being businesses themselves, the service levels that they're receiving aren't necessarily commensurate with the business they've brought to these firms," Watson said of large incumbent custodians. "They've gotten enormous, and the service levels have really diminished."
An expanding number of competitors and changing areas of demand among are giving service providers an edge for potential business, according to Marina Shtyrkov, the associate director of wealth management for consulting firm Cerulli Associates. Speaking on
"Growing larger as an RIA can solve some challenges that firms have, but then it also creates other, different challenges," she said. "As RIAs grow, when they bump up against some of these new challenges, they might decide to merge with another firm, they might decide to join a consolidator or some other type of turnkey platform, but, in either way for strategic partners — whether that's asset managers, private equity firms, custodians, whatever — these are areas where you can really provide some meaningful value and help RIAs tackle whatever challenges they face."
