Succession planning

When plans for an external sale faltered, Quest Capital Management looked closer to home and found a better solution. Here's what the partners learned.

Whether you're selling right now or next decade, there are many ways to make any solo practice appeal to buyers.

'If the goal is to maximize value, selling to an external buyer is always better,' says Pershing's Mark Tibergien. 'If the goal is based on commitments to clients and associates, selling internally is better.'

While money may not always be an advisors' number one consideration when deciding to switch firms, it almost always becomes an emotionally charged issue. Here's what to think about.

Developing successful training programs that embrace Millennial advisors is the single most important way to attract and maintain the wealth of this new generation.

Planners thinking of retirement often seek young partners to share the business. But such pairings can be tricky to pull off.

Here are some of the most common mistakes advisors make in running their practices -- and how you can avoid them, according to one practice management expert and former advisor.

Beset by a graying workforce, an aging clientele and a shortage of young talent, the wealth management industry is at long last changing course.

A graying workforce. A homogenous culture. New technologies. With its future at stake, the wealth management industry is finally confronting its many challenges.

As they prepare for retirement, senior advisors can help young planners become competent and confident financial advisors.

Having a long-term horizon for the sale of a business puts the owner in a better position to optimize tax strategies. It's also an opportunity for advisors angling for the investment business a sale will produce.

United Capital has started providing regular liquidity to advisors with some first stock sales proceeds exceeding $500,000.

A "sunset program" for soon-to-retire advisors is already underway at some banks. But there is still much to be done, industry executives say.

More emphasis on incentive pay, bonus pools and flexibility as firms scramble to lure and keep talent.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management is putting the spotlight on advisor training with its appointment of Racquel Oden as head of new advisor development.

With the advisor population aging and looking to retire, more wealth management firms are stepping up their efforts to recruit and train a new generation of advisors.

Cambridge's Amy Webber says promotion is next step in complex internal succession plan.

Without viable succession plans, wealth managers are at risk of slowly drifting off into oblivion -- willing partners in their own firms' demise. It's negligent behavior, and anything but benign.

A clash over future growth plans at Lenox Wealth Management led to the departure of the firm's 34-year-old president and COO Jay Hummel.

Almost half of the advisors in a new FPA study say they don't have a retirement plan; even more fail on business and succession plans.