Page 31 - Investment Advisor June 2022
P. 31
How the
Wealth
Management
Industry Is
Changing
Big firms have adopted more RIA-like offerings;
meanwhile, breakaway brokers have gotten smarter,
says former Schwab executive Rob Farmer.
By Jane Wollman Rusoff
“ t’s a ‘jump ball’ for both wirehouses and RIAs,” Farmer, who was managing director of corporate communica-
says Rob Farmer, managing director and head of
I communications at The Rudin Group and a former tions for Schwab’s institutional business.
In the interview, he describes a way that wirehouse advisors
Charles Schwab executive. can inform clients they’re leaving their firm before making the
RIAs will remain on a “growth trajectory” but “not with- actual move. “But there are some real guardrails around what
out challenges: Wirehouses and banks [are] competing more they can and cannot say,” he stresses.
fiercely for those clients’ assets,” he argues. Indeed, in their At Rudin, Farmer is helping clients — all in financial services
effort to retain the assets potential breakaway advisors man- and which include global banks, such as BNY Mellon; RIAs;
age, wirehouses are instituting changes that “make them look BDs; asset managers; data analytics firms; and fintech compa-
a lot more like independent [RIA] firms,” Farmer says. nies — get more attention in the marketplace by “highlighting
These include adjustments in fee structure and offering the people at the firms,” he explains. That’s accomplished by
added client services like those RIAs provide. Meanwhile, RIA embedding “in a nuanced way” an executive’s personal story
custodians have been educating advisors on “the proper way within the message that the firm wants to deliver concerning
to break away” without causing “regulatory backlash,” says its products or services.
JUNE 2022 INVESTMENT ADVISOR 29
