UBS and Merit pull away in advisor talent race
The 30-day activity log shows two scale models pulling away while the middle shrinks.
September 3
The Data Desk 10 stories this week · 75 total
The numbers desk. PWD's own tracking, rendered as analysis a reader can act on.
The Signal
Distribution, not AUM, is the new recruiting magnet
Benefits brokers, corporate-retirement shops, digital planners and trading platforms all out-recruited LPL in the latest 30-day table, and the reason is a client pipeline rather than a transition check.
Advisors go home as U.S. equity bias deepens
Fidelity's look inside 5,579 advisor portfolios finds a homeward rotation, and a quarter of books hold no international equities at all.
The Signal
Eleven breakaways, 979 moves: custody is now the contract
The breakaway has become a rounding error; the month's deals show the talent war is being fought over custody networks and whole enterprises.
Hightower hands Dispatch the keys to its data layer
The Signature Wealth deal is a bet that the next phase of RIA M&A runs on integration, not aggregation.
UBS is out-hustling independent RIAs
PWD's 30-day tracking shows UBS logged 160 market events, nearly 40% more than the nearest independent aggregator.
The meeting is the new AI battleground
Vanguard's Altruist tax-AI deal and a wave of meeting-focused launches move the platform war into the advisor-client conversation.
Team Liftouts Outpace Breakaways 9-to-1
Aggregators and wirehouses are buying whole books; custody barely moves.
Fund launches nearly match the M&A close rate
Platforms launched 168 funds in 30 days while closing 212 deals — and the shelf-space race is the real consolidation story.
Office buyers are pricing cash flow, not recovery
This week's trades show a market clearing building by building, long leases and credit anchors setting the price.
Advisors are moving; custody isn't
Seven custodian changes in a month of 577 advisor moves say the platform war hasn't started.
The breakaway is now a rounding error
Advisors moved 566 times in 30 days; only 10 left to start a new firm.
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.
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.
Nine solo moves for every team liftout
PWD's 30-day tracking shows the advisor talent war is now a volume game, with UBS the largest source of churn and Farther and Tastytrade the winners of the solo move.
Tech-native platforms are winning the advisor talent race
Farther and Tastytrade logged 100 market events in 30 days, more than three times LPL and Commonwealth combined.
The benefits channel is the new recruiting battleground
OpenArc and OneDigital logged 149 events in 30 days, clearing UBS's 120, as the advisor talent war pivots from wirehouse breakaways to benefits and retirement books.
Recruiting overtakes dealmaking in 30-day RIA tracking
Advisor moves outpaced deal announcements by 86 over the month, with UBS logging 110 events as the talent war shifts from M&A to team raids.
Family offices co-bid with private equity for real assets
Patient family capital is moving from LP checks to principal deals, and funds are meeting their former backers at the auction table.
Acquisition announcements edge past advisor moves in 30 days
Announced purchases now outnumber advisor moves, a small gap with a clear direction.
FP Transitions launches Estimated Value Index for advisory firms
The 1-to-100 score gives owners a directional read on firm value relative to peers.
Advisor sentiment stays positive as six-month outlook dims
Current conditions still read above neutral, but the share of advisors expecting economic improvement has fallen 29 points since May.
AdvisorFinder Intelligence grades RIAs' AI visibility
Pricing starts at $99 a month; the service scores appearances in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
Confluence launches POINT to cut manual report-validation work
The AI layer plugs an automated checklist and a plain-English interface into Confluence's existing products.
Raymond James presses a two-front talent war, from advisors to custody
A 14-move month and a Schwab custody hire put Raymond James on both fronts alone.
Low-cost funds took half of record $1T ETF inflows
Half-year data show plain-vanilla funds still anchor advisor portfolios, even as issuers push active and private-market products.
59 moves, one new office
The talent war has become a fight for the same chairs.
Wealth Managers Are Launching Funds as Fast as They're Buying Firms
PWD counted sixteen private-market fund launches in a month, matching announced acquisitions. Product manufacturing is the next front.
Family offices bought the assets. They left out the heirs.
As allocations surge, the $83.5 trillion transfer is running into a governance gap: heirs are not being brought into the decision room.
Churn in the corner office, quiet in the AUM column
Over a month, PWD tracked 45 people moves and two asset changes. The industry reorganized; client money stayed put.
Wealth M&A's 2.7-to-1 gap between talk and closings
A 30-day PWD deal log shows the roll-up narrative rests on intent, not completed deals.
Apex Launches Prediction Markets Platform, Tastytrade First
Apex's turnkey API gives RIAs and wealth firms access to Kalshi's event contracts, with Tastytrade as first adopter.
Advisor360 CEO: AI resets trust in wealth software
New chief says data integration, not feature counts, will decide platform competition.
Orion, Goldman Sachs expand custody tech with AI onboarding
Orion's AI-powered account opening tool debuts on Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions, with more custodians to follow.
CFPB poised to let big banks charge billions in data fees
Big banks win data-fee fight, shaping fintech and RIA costs.