By Robert Gorman, Founding Partner | Chief Operating Officer Robert Gorman
Breaking away from wirehouses has never been easy. But the leap of faith to independent work demands a lot more work for advisors than it did even a few years ago.
I don’t say this to discourage breakaways. We don’t actually think it’s possible to turn back the clock on the mass exodus toward the RIA channel, even if we wanted to. Years of economic volatility and a pandemic have not dislodged the desire of advisors to strike out on their own. In fact, Cerulli Associates predicts independent and hybrid-channel RIAs are projected to capture nearly a third of the intermediary asset market share by 2027. The appeal of running one’s own business, the flexibility of organizational structures, and the typically higher payout percentages compared to wirehouses and IBDs, are all hard to argue with.
