RIAs’ growth opportunity expands

The RIA industry has witnessed incredible growth in the past decade, but custodians, too, are looking to cash in on recent trends, like increased client access to alternative assets and digital currencies.

At this week’s InvestmentNews RIA Summit, growth took center stage — and that stage had better be large and reinforced.

One panelist cited an industry report that said the market has grown from about 6,600 investment advisers registered with the SEC in 2000 to more than 13,880 firms now. Among those are 851 wealth management firms with $1 billion or more in assets, 166 with $5 billion or more in assets, and 75 RIAs with $10 billion or more in assets.

And as per Bruce Kelly’s reporting last Wednesday, “private equity managers are swarming around RIA firms with $500 million to $1 billion or more in assets, looking to buy and merge firms into increasingly larger networks. And because cash is cheap due to low interest rates, financing deals continues to be attractive.”

But that growth opportunity isn’t limited to the RIA world. As these firms’ clients look for increased access to alternative assets and digital currencies, custodians hope to capitalize on that. Ben Harrison, managing director and co-head of wealth solutions at Pershing, said the firm has set up a digital currency and asset business to explore the future of custody, blockchain and crypto investing and how it happens for RIA clients.

And Bernie Clark, head of advisor services and managing director at Charles Schwab, said, “We’re seeing tremendous growth in alternatives on our platform right now, it’s unprecedented, and I expect that’s going to continue.”