Investment Advisor July 2010
Cover Story
Your Next Custodian?
When advisors and the companies that partner with advisors think about RBC at all, they might consider it as a largish regional brokerage firm born...
Features
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Succession Planning: Planning Your Future
The economy may be on a slow track to recovery, but acquisitions of independent RIA practices are powering ahead. With the industry's continued growth and...
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Succession Planning: Pass It Forward
As you help your clients prepare for retirement, is that R-word beginning to push your personal buttons? To wit, isn't it time you yourself started...
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Succession Planning: Buying and Selling Wealth Management Practices
Asnoted in the lead story of this special section on succession planning, "Planning for Your Future, 2010 could be the biggest year ever for mergers...
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Succession Planning: You've Got To Have A Plan
While a financial planning practice is a business, it's more akin to a doctor's office than a shoe store. Medical practitioners invariably have backup plans--other...
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Mutual Fund Spotlight: One For All
It may seem only natural that Chicago-based Ariel Investments' flagship $2.3 billion Ariel Fund attracts more attention than the firm's other products. After all, it...
Beginnings
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Editor's Note: Of Vacuums and Flattery
"Capitalism abhors a vacuum." I heard that phrase for the first time in a radio interview with Michael Okrent, the journalist and writer, who recently...
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A Whirlwind of SEC Activity
Whether a fiduciary duty for broker/dealers and all types of financial advisory professionals makes it into the final financial reform legislation (which remains in conference...
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LPL Financial's IPO: The Competitive Equation
The parent company of the largest independent broker/dealer, LPL Financial, filed an S-1 statement with the SEC on June 4 to go public via an...
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"NAPFA Is Back," Says Group's Chair
With more than 500 attendees and 110 exhibitors, "NAPFA is back," Bill Baldwin, 2009-2010 chair of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, told the...
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Catching up with Richard Brueckner
Pershing LLC Chairman and CEO Richard Brueckner, COO Brian Shea, and Managing Director Frank La Salla sat down with Investment Advisor Group Editor-in-Chief and John...
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The ETF Advisor: Technology ETFs Ride the iPhone's Wave
About thirty years ago, fans would camp out for tickets to rock concerts and new movies, while technology buffs stayed home dreaming. These days, technology...
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Venture Populist: Founder's Skin-in-the-Game
Remember Jobs and Wozniak? Gates and Allen? Don't assume a founder's lack of committed capital to be a stumbling block to a venture's success. In short-sighted...
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Asset Allocation
Behind the Numbers, with Sam Stovall "We're in a correction mode right now. The market has declined 10% to 20% from the S&P 500's closing high...
Columns
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Formulas For Success: Growth The Silent Killer
There is an old adage that says "when you stop growing, you start dying." Caught in a low-growth cycle, many advisors are looking for ways...
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Clark At Large: Done Deal
As I write this, the financial reform bill is in conference committee to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the proposed new law, which...
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The Fast Track: Taking It Personally
Most management books and many business school courses are adamant about not forming personal relationships with people who work for you; particularly, not socializing with...
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The Green Advisor: Food for Thought From a Tragedy
A few years ago, British Petroleum officially changed its name to the simpler BP, a point that seems to have been lost on many officials...
Conclusions
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The Technology Coach: It's Mid-Summer Technology Review Time
Ah, summer! For all of us, now is the time to take a step back and enjoy a well-deserved break. For advisors, however, the slightly-less...
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Retirement Planning: Discord With DOL
As the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) prepares to move forward soon in finalizing its regulation on investment advice for 401(k)s and...
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Retirement Planning: News & Products
On May 28 the House passed the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213), which not only gives various tax cuts, but provides...
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Insurance Update: A Wider Embrace of LTC
The Office of Personnel Man-agement (OPM) has announced that, as of July 1, long-term care (LTC) insurance coverage will be available for the same-sex partners...
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The High-Performance Coach: The Five Myths of Professional Networks
As an advisor, have you ever had a business relationship with a CPA or an attorney that is the professional equivalent of unrequited love? Do...
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The Compliance Coach: An IPS Happy Medium
Investment advisors should have a policy whereby they obtain (and maintain) sufficient information regarding the client's circumstances so as to demonstrate that the firm managed...
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IA Soapbox: Europe, ETFs, and the Fiduciary Standard
The European landscape of ETFs looks much different than the U.S., partly due to the lack of a fiduciary duty to clients among advisors there. Returning...
Sidebar Stories
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The Canadian Connection
"When you hear RBC, you don't think Wall Street, so from a perception standpoint, being Canadian helps," says Mike Kavanagh, chief administrative officer and head,...
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John Rogers on the Advisor Diversity Challenge
One of the general sessions of NAPFA's annual conference was a session with John W. Rogers, Jr., chairman and founder of Ariel Investments. He was...
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Different This Time
One of the clear signs that the fiduciary standard has taken center stage among the public is the coverage the issue has received in the...
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A View Across the Table From BP
Bennett Freeman has a history of working on issues with BP that stretches back more than a dozen years and includes his work as senior...
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A True Backup Test
To conduct a legitimate test of your backup system, simply viewing the backed up files on a removable hard drive is not enough. A good...
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Buddy Up for Safety
What does your firm do if you must evacuate your office for a couple of days or even weeks? One of the best ways to...
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Snap Quiz on Disaster Recovery
Your business resumption plan is only good if it works, and if all your staff--even the recently added ones--are trained on what to do in...
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Case Study: Vernon Cale and His Network
"You gotta work with Vernon!" Recently, Vernon Cale began a new million-dollar relationship with a client who was introduced to him by a home remodeler...
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What's an Advocate?
At ClientWise, our research shows us that advisors gain leverage by using professional advocates to get client introductions. But what is a "professional advocate?" We...
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Ask These Questions
To help its coaching clients build a "professional advocate" network, ClientWise has formulated questions to ask prospective members of your network. Here's a sampling: o How...
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RBC Is Not Pershing
If truth be told, when Michael Kavanagh of RBC Advisor Services talks about "RBC's commitment to helping third party RIAs deliver the sophisticated solutions that...
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Cultured in More Ways Than One
In discussing its Advisor Services custody initiative, management at RBC likes to focus on the Canada-upper Midwest corporate cultural fit that eased the acquisition by...
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Tailor-Made Successor
While it may not always be easy to find an external successor, it can be done. That was the experience of Kevin Hoyle and Joe...
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Options, Options, Options
Big banks used to be the main acquirers of advisory firms, but in the past few years, the consolidators (such as Focus Financial Partners and...
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Olivia's Advice on Succession Planning
Many financial advisors resist developing a succession plan because of our individual (and societal) reluctance to deal with death and disability. It's easier to say...
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Arriving With an Exit Strategy
Cathy Pareto, who operates a solo practice in Coral Gables, Florida with the help of one assistant, says that during the 10 years she worked...
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Pershing Political Insights
Speaking at the Pershing Insite conference in south Florida on June 9, journalist and television commentator David Gergen predicted that the Republican party would fail...
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Pershing's Mobile Apps
When cio suresh Kumar talks about Pershing LLC's NetX360 platform that just celebrated its one-year anniversary, he's understandably excited about the 70% adoption rate among...
Sponsor
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Event Spotlight
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Resource Library
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Breaking up is hard to do
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