Ameriprise Financial wants its asset management team to come up with new products for members of its Advice Wealth Management team to sell.
Jim Cracchiolo, the Minneapolis-based financial services company's chief executive officer, talked about the future of the Advice Wealth Management team last week during a call the company held to go over earnings for the third quarter with securities analysts.
"We haven't put as much focus as we used to on the AWM business," Cracchiolo said.
Now, Cracchiolo said, there's an opportunity for Ameriprise's Columbia Threadneedle Investments arm to develop solutions aimed at the wealth advisor business.
What it means: The independent RIA space may be growing, but don't count the big broker-dealers out.
The Ameriprise strategy: Just what Columbia Threadneedle could end up offering Ameriprise advisors is unclear.
Cracchiolo was responding to a question from Suneet Kamath of Jefferies, who asked about how Ameriprise is benefiting from having both an asset management business and a wealth advisor business.
Ameriprise has put more focus in recent years on building relationships with outside distributors, Cracchiolo said.
Now, Ted Truscott, the CEO of Columbia Threadneedle, is "working on a combination of current solutions that he has, as well as bringing other solutions to bear," Cracchiolo said.
Cracchiolo gave no details about the new solutions in the pipeline.
Advisor recruiting deals: Another analyst, Steven Chubak of Wolfe Research, asked about the cost of acquiring advisors' practices.
Some buyers are using extra compensation to improve their offers to advisors, Cracchiolo said.
