RIA Assets Shrinking

The annual reports of IAA and NRS revealed that the total number of SEC RIAs  has grown 2% to 11,257 however the their assets under management shrunk 20% after reaching over $42 trillion back last year. We see growth in the amount of smaller firms in the RIA world however they are now looking at assets under management of les than $1000 million. This is what David Tittsworth, executive director of the Investment Adviser Association (IAA) had to say: “First, assets fell across the board, and firms that were once considered larger or medium-sized dropped into the smaller firm category. Obviously this year some of the change is because assets just fell for everybody—so larger advisors fell into the smaller categories,” Second, he notes of the new RIAs:“I don’t have data to prove it but I suspect that some must be attributable to breakaway brokers. Every number in the report is from ADV amendment files, and they don’t ask, ‘were you a broker before?’”

Read more here.