Advisors are moving; custody isn't
Seven custodian changes in a month of 577 advisor moves say the platform war hasn't started.
Story archive
All Private Wealth Daily reporting, newest first.
Practifi's Sentir folds AI into the CRM's core
The Chicago vendor's launch challenges Salesforce and the AI notetakers building the workflow layer incumbents left open.
april plugs IRS transcripts into advisor planning workflows
Tax planning software adoption is up 11 points in three years, and april is wiring IRS transcripts into advisors' year-round planning workflow.
Wells Fargo turns the breakaway into a recruiting channel
Independent advisers brought $17 billion onto the platform this year, and the bank is now recruiting on both sides of the independence line.
A $160 million Annapolis defection shows the Commonwealth diaspora still flows
A four-person, $160 million practice leaving Commonwealth is a small move with outsized meaning for LPL's retention math and Cetera's channel strategy.
The middle-class retirement gap is a debt problem
Transamerica's new survey finds households earning $50,000 to $200,000 paying debt before saving, with a median account of $64,000 that most advisors never see.
Vanguard’s Altruist bid is a tax-season acquisition
The AI tax tool inside the $4.6 billion offer will decide the next platform fight.
AI's billionaire boom is a concentration trap
With $6.6 trillion moving to heirs, family offices that de-risk AI-era concentration now will keep the assets; those that wait will watch the market do it for them.
Vanguard data dismantles the empathy-first pitch to women clients
The study describes a client who wants a decision-making partner and an educational process, and it suggests the industry's empathy-first script has the priorities reversed.
KKR taps JPMorgan's Sayori Kondo to co-head Japan wealth
The co-head appointment is a bet that distribution relationships can be hired before product scales.
RIA M&A assets nearly double on fewer, bigger deals
Fidelity's midyear data puts the median target at $630M and private equity behind 89% of deals; the buyer pool is getting shorter.
RIA M&A is now a financing event
Fidelity's first-half tally: 9 percent fewer deals, nearly double the acquired assets, and private equity behind 89 percent. The succession trade is over, and the exit question is open.
Vanguard's $4.6B Altruist bet raises the custody stakes
Backed by an all-cash $4.6 billion offer, Altruist becomes a credible long-term rival to Schwab and Fidelity.
RIA deal count dips as acquired assets nearly double to $342.9 billion
The count fell 9% while dollar volume nearly doubled, and private equity funded 89% of the deals.
Victory Capital's $7 billion First Eagle buy is a distribution play
A $571 billion combination built on a private-credit distribution bet, with 35% EPS accretion and a $280 million synergy target as the proof of price.
The $280 million tell in Victory's First Eagle deal
Amundi's 27 percent stake turns the $7 billion deal into a private-credit distribution bet, with the $280 million synergy target as the proof of price.
The breakaway is now a rounding error
Advisors moved 566 times in 30 days; only 10 left to start a new firm.
Victory Capital's $7B First Eagle deal is a private-credit bet
The combined $571 billion manager is paying for a CLO distribution engine; the $280 million synergy target will prove the price.
An Intermediary Outran Every Acquirer Last Month
OpenArc Corporate Advisory's 88 transactions in 30 days show the RIA consolidation wave now runs on sell-side advisory.
Vanguard's Altruist buy is a bet on tax season
The fund giant gains an RIA platform, an AI tax tool, and a seat in a custody fight it never won on cost alone.
Curi's Vistria deal: a bet on process, not pipeline
The $14B Chicago RIA is selling a majority stake without a single LOI in hand—the capital is meant to build the deal machine, not feed it.
Cresset's Boca Raton liftout is a CPA template with $4 billion attached
A 16-person UBS team with two CPA-trained principals shows what pulls wirehouse teams into the independent channel: family-office structure, ahead of payout.
The 89% question hanging over RIA M&A
Fidelity's first-half tally shows fewer, larger deals — and a private-equity share of buying that has become the market's defining dependency.
Prosperity taps Forvis Mazars wealth leader as president
The hire extends the wealth industry's 2026 C-suite makeover into the tax-adjacent RIA channel.
Wealth transfer's costliest mistake is waiting
UBS's Sarah Salomon says Buffett's eight-year pledge is a lesson in readiness rather than timing — and the RIA that stages the rehearsal keeps the assets.
LPL and Raymond James land $470M, but the platform is the pitch
Two advisors left Harbour and Ameriprise for capabilities, not grids, as the platform war becomes the recruiting pitch.
Amundi backs Victory Capital's $7B First Eagle deal as shareholder and distributor
Amundi's blessing comes as 27 percent owner and lead distributor, which makes the $280 million synergy target the number to watch.
Citizens adds a $1 billion Tampa team and keeps its name
The UHNW team keeps its name inside the bank, a recruiting signal as Citizens builds a private-wealth map one market at a time.
CFA Institute: private credit's retail rules lag the market
A new report argues that private lending's risks are transformed, not removed, as semi-liquid funds and BDCs reach upper-tier wealth investors.
The first institutional redemption will test evergreen liquidity
When a pension or endowment redeems from a wealth evergreen fund, the clearing price will reveal whether the channel's liquidity was built for the money it holds.
Institutional money arrives in the wealth channel with a redemption question attached
Blackstone and KKR built these funds for wealthy individuals. Now institutions are allocating, and the first institutional redemption will be the real test.
USS hires CalSTRS veteran to run private equity
One senior hire imports CalSTRS's private-equity judgment into a UK scheme.
Woo family office weighs $1bn secondary exit
A $1bn private equity exit from a family office shows liquidity demand has reached the patient capital private markets were built on.
Cresset pulls $4B UBS team into Boca Raton
The 16-person group, led by a pair of CPA veterans, lands with the business-owner relationships that feed Cresset's private-markets machine.
Mercer buys a Columbus RIA to fill out its Ohio Valley grid
Mercer's purchase of NorthAvenue Financial Advocates shows how a consolidator buys geography and demographics, one small team at a time.
Cresset's Platform Pitch Pulls a $4B UBS Team
The 16-person group led by Michael Bober and Ed Ventrice gives Cresset its first Boca Raton office and deepens a South Florida push built on alternatives.
Private capital's barbell has no middle fund
Elad Gil's Cosmic funds filed $3.76 billion in offerings the same day shelf LLCs filed as little as $81,000, and the traditional mid-sized fund stayed away.
Prosperity imports a tax-firm president as the C-suite talent war moves to the platform
Three moves this week put tax, technology, and the bank balance sheet under single executives — the talent war has moved to the platform.
Vistria's Curi stake buys a deal machine
With WPCG still sourcing deals and Vistria supplying capital, Curi Capital looks built to keep buying.
City National adds ten private bankers in California
The RBC subsidiary rebuilt its private bank from the top down; ten new California bankers are an early test of whether that sequence pays off.
OneDigital out-consolidates LPL and Tastytrade combined
The employee-benefits brokerage logged 71 advisor and acquisition events in 30 days, more than LPL's 28 and Tastytrade's 37 combined, pointing the talent war through benefits platforms.
Retail venture funds sell access, and the volatility comes with it
Destiny Tech100's 44% three-month loss shows what happens when late-stage private assets meet a listed wrapper.
LPL's platform pitch lands $230 million father-son team
The father-son move shows LPL's technology strategy is reaching down market, where client retention is the proving ground.
BlackRock's $671 million loan sale tests private credit's exit price
The TCP Capital book will give advisors a real mark on what private credit pays when clients want out.
Bank M&A wave will redraw the advisor map
For wealth managers, the bank consolidation wave is a custody and talent story before it is a lending story.
Confluence minority stake is a growth bet
Constellation's minority investment in $7.6B Confluence leaves the founders in control and the investor's return dependent on the next valuation.
Gateway bets coaching can fix the 72% rookie failure rate
A Connecticut hybrid RIA is spending on continuous mentor access to keep next-gen advisors from washing out.
BlackRock explores sale of TCP Capital's $671m loan book
A sale of the troubled vehicle's remaining portfolio would show where private credit books actually clear.
Deep-tech resilience fund reports $500M in 16 days
A $500 million raise in sixteen days lands on a Form D that leaves the fund's cap blank and its terms in the private placement memorandum.
Elad Gil's Cosmic files three venture funds seeking $3.76 billion
Three Form Ds, one date, no capital sold: the architecture tells allocators the manager is selling choice, not a single fund.