Page 22 - Investment Advisor - December 2023

And what the industry shifts mean

for advisors in the year ahead

By Allison Bell, Jeff Berman, Janet Levaux, John Manganaro and Melanie Waddell

fter a brutal year for the stock market in 2022, this year brought a much-welcomed turnaround.
The asset levels of financial advisors and their firms improved, and larger players continued to gobble
A up smaller ones — especially those with sought-after services and technology.
Some industry deals reflected deep problems at finan- required minimum distributions in 2023 from accounts inher-
cial entities such as First Republic Bank and Credit Suisse. ited in 2020 or later. And they got to tell IRA owners turning
JPMorgan Chase acquired $295 billion of First Republic 72 who unnecessarily started RMDs in 2023 that this money
Bank’s assets in May after paying the Federal Deposit could be returned to their accounts.
Insurance Corporation $10.6 billion. Two months earlier, As in prior years, it’s difficult to pick out the biggest of
UBS Group agreed to buy the nearly collapsed Credit Suisse the big news stories from 2023. Our coverage of important Joe Biden, Julie Su: Al Drago/Bloomberg
for $3.2 billion, creating a firm with about $5 trillion in trends in technology, like innovation in generative AI and data
global assets. breaches stemming from the exploitation of MOVEit transfer
Meanwhile, advisors kept busy with issues directly affecting software, can be found on ThinkAdvisor. In this piece, we dig
clients. They had to reassure some beneficiaries of individual into developments tied to regulation and compliance, retire-
retirement accounts, for instance, that they didn’t need to take ment planning and some of the major industry players.

20 Investment AdvIsor December 2023 | ThinkAdvisor.com