FA’ S 2025 RIA SURVEY & RANKING
That worry about organic growth was seconded by David DeVoe, who runs his own namesake consulting firm and investment bank, DeVoe & Co., and who spoke about the organic growth problem at the BNY Pershing Insite conference in June.
“ We all know that the independent wealth management model is the most effective and the best way to help U. S. families and individuals have better lives,” DeVoe said.“ Unfortunately, we’ re growing at less than 3 % organically. We have a stock market that’ s pushing us, but the growth rate, the organic growth rate has been suboptimal, to say the least. And it’ s a self-inflicted wound.”
DeVoe uncovered a major reason this is happening.“ I saw this decline in organic growth from 2017 up through 2022. I looked at the data. Advisors cut their business development and marketing budgets by 50 %, 5-0, over the course of those five years,” he says.“ And guess what happened to organic growth? It went down.”
At least one firm is taking dramatic action to bring in new clients. Mercer’ s Welling points to his firm’ s hiring of separate client development specialists, which he says is unique in the industry.“ We have 120 people that are focused in sales and marketing capacity, of which over 100 we just call client development professionals,” he says.
“ They’ re sales professionals. Their job is to help find new clients. So this structure is pretty unique in
WHAT MOSTLY ACCOUNTED FOR YOUR ASSET INFLOWS IN 2024? a wealth management firm or an advisory firm. Under the hood we bifurcated the responsibilities of finding new clients from serving clients,” Welling continues.“ Those 100 plus people come to work every day and they’ re thinking about how to find a match with a prospective new client and what we could do for them.”
That structure, he adds,“ isn’ t wildly different than how lots of other industries operate.”
What AI Can Do
Cresset’ s Cranston, who has an industrial engineering background, has taken a special interest in the AI revolution and talks about how quickly things are going to accelerate in the next few years.
“ With AI, you can just have a bot that seamlessly ensures everything is integrated. You can design bots to ensure that that data is clean.”
WAS YOUR FIRM INVOLVED IN ANY SERIOUS MERGERS OR ACQUISITIONS TALKS WITHIN THE PAST THREE YEARS?
— SUSIE CRANSTON, PRESIDENT AND COO, CRESSET
32.33 %
67.67 %
New assets from existing clients |
23.06 % |
Assets from new clients |
38.78 % |
Market performance |
33.06 % |
Assets from mergers or acquisitions |
13.77 % |
|
TOTAL AUM IN 2024 BY SIZE RANGE
SIZE RANGE
NUMBER OF FIRMS
Yes
2024 AUM( BILLIONS)
|
No |
2023 AUM OF SAME FIRMS |
% CHANGE |
WHAT MOSTLY ACCOUNTED FOR YOUR ASSET OUTFLOWS IN 2024?
Assets withdrawn by retired clients 42.02 % Assets lost by clients who died 9.71 % Assets withdrawn by clients for personal use 32.23 % Assets withdrawn by clients who left the firm 18.10 %
>$ 1billion |
252 |
$ 4,434.23 |
$ 3,476.74 |
27.54 % |
$ 500 million < $ 1 billion |
55 |
$ 41.06 |
$ 41.00 |
0.16 % |
$ 300 million < $ 500 million |
29 |
$ 11.69 |
$ 9.72 |
20.30 % |
$ 100 million < $ 300 million |
26 |
$ 5.07 |
$ 4.42 |
14.88 % |
$ 50 million < $ 100 million |
1 |
$ 0.07 |
$ 0.05 |
32.99 % |
< $ 50 million |
3 |
$ 0.07 |
$ 0.06 |
21.99 % |
TOTAL AUM |
366 |
$ 4,492.19 |
$ 3,531.98 |
27.19 % |
ADVISORY FIRM CHARACTERISTICS
CATEGORY MEAN 2024 MEAN 2023 % CHANGE MEDIAN 2024 MEDIAN 2023
% CHANGE Number of client relationships 6,969.38 6,424.36 8.48 % 754 682 10.56 % Firm assets per client * $ 7,095,305.31 $ 6,477,439.09 9.54 % $ 2,319,162.84 $ 2,166,855.90 7.03 % Overall assets per client ** $ 1,765,922.14 $ 1,522,934.54 15.96 % NM NM NM
* A comparison of assets per client at each ranked firm. ** A ratio of total assets to total clients at all ranked firms. NM = not meaningful.
JULY / AUGUST 2025 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 29