CG Financial hires TradePMR and Axos executives as platform fight intensifies

The platform fight has entered its staffing phase. Jon Patullo left TradePMR, where he ran product, to become chief operating officer and chief information officer at CG Financial, the $5 billion hybrid RIA that also hired Eugene "Gino" DeRango from Axos Advisor Services to direct its CG Advisor Network, while Robinhood's Kate Mapstone went the other way into TradePMR as head of RIA strategy.

After years of acquiring assets, platforms are now hiring for the operating capacity that comes from vendor-side careers: CG Financial said it will draw on Patullo's vendor relationships as it keeps investing in its technology platform, DeRango now runs the advisor network that sits on that platform, and TradePMR's countermove was to bring in a Robinhood executive to shape its RIA strategy.

On the deal side, Concurrent, a Tampa hybrid RIA, bought Spire, a $5.4 billion RIA platform with more than 30 teams, in its first platform purchase, lifting the firm to $28.6 billion. Concurrent wants one or two more platform deals a year, targeting platforms between $3 billion and $10 billion, and disclosed no purchase price; with deal counts shrinking while assets in play are not, the platform-buying lane is more selective, and a Spire-type acquisition is priced partly for its teams and their custodial ties.

PWD's tracking shows 2,413 advisors changed firms in 30 days, while only 22 custody relationships changed hands. Advisor moves do not automatically move custody, so custody conversions are rarer than the recruiting totals imply, and when custody itself moves, the economics change for both custodians.

The $8 billion Rise team moved custody from Ameriprise to Schwab on Sept. 23, SEC records show, accounting for about 55 percent of the $14.58 billion in advisor moves recorded that week. One team produced more than half the weekly asset total.

The SEC's proposed crypto custody rule could add another set of custodians by allowing an RIA to self-custody crypto when no permitted custodian is available, subject to private-key management, annual security reviews, two-person authorization, and quarterly availability checks. The proposal follows Congress's failure last month to pass digital-asset legislation, and if adopted, it would let an RIA hold digital assets itself under those operational conditions, potentially bringing new custody-capable operators into a market where custody moves are scarce.

The competition is converging on that scarce converted custody. Vendor-side executives carry the relationship maps and product roadmaps platforms need; Concurrent's Spire purchase gives it 30-plus teams and a new platform target; CG Financial's hires give it technology and network leadership; and TradePMR's Mapstone hire gives it a perspective on RIA strategy formed at a consumer brokerage. How much broader that competition gets depends on how many product and custody officers follow Patullo and Mapstone across the vendor-platform line; the next hire will show whether this is an isolated burst of hiring or the beginning of a wider migration.