The impact of robo advisors has been a hot topic, as the new crop of online advice providers have been busy raising capital and attracting investor assets.
But one industry veteran isn’t concerned.
“Don’t be afraid of robo advisors,” said Peter Mangan, chief executive of Shareholder Services Group, a custodian service platform for RIAs.
“Since the Internet has been around, we’ve seen a number of them come and go,” Mangan told about 250 advisors attending SSG’s annual conference in Coronado, Calif., which kicked off Wednesday afternoon.
"The landscape is littered with failed robo advisors,” said Mangan.
“Have any lasted longer than their venture capital?” he asked. “You deal with real clients, real money and real problems,” which a black box can’t evaluate, Mangan said.
SSG is a service platform for independent RIAs. It outsources actual asset custody to Pershing LLC.
Mangan, who like many at SSG got his start in the custody business at the old Jack White & Company, has described SSG as an “introducing custodian,” similar to an introducing broker-dealer. The firm caters to smaller and start-up advisors—about 1,200 total with about $5 billion in assets.
Business has been steady, with 15 to 20 new advisors coming in the door each month, said Barry Boyte, chief compliance officer at the firm. Some come from independent broker-dealers or split off from existing RIA firms to start their own shops. “And we’re getting a surprising number of career changers,” he said, typically CPAs or insurance agents.
These upstarts with some gray hair “do well. They’re not looking to build a huge firm, but want to get to $50 million or $60 million in assets,” Boyte said.