Commonwealth Sees a Surge in BDs Ditching FINRA Registrations
August 14, 2019 by Jeff Berman
As Commonwealth Financial Network continues to see a significant number of broker-dealers (BDs) and dually registered BDs and investment advisors transition to become fee-only registered investment advisors and investment advisor representatives, the company has reached $5 billion in assets under management from fee-only advisors who don’t have any affiliation with the firm’s BD business, according to Greg Gohr, its senior vice president of wealth management.
The company is, meanwhile, on track to achieve an additional significant milestone, probably late in the third quarter of this year, when “we’ll probably cross 100 fee-only advisors,” he told ThinkAdvisor.
The rate at which advisors are “moving away from the broker-dealer and choosing to build and grow their businesses exclusively in an advisory capacity” keeps increasing, he said. Another recent trend: An increasing number of them are opting to become IARs rather than going it alone as independent RIAs.
“They just prefer the security and the resources of a larger firm” like Commonwealth, he explained, adding that the “seamless” system that his company uses makes the transition even more appealing.
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