In 2016, the average firm registered with $276 million AUM. New firms with more than $300 million in AUM managed a total of $35 billion, a 15 percent increase from 2015.
Schwab reports that it had 40 percent of the market share of RIAs newly registered with the SEC making a single custodian selection, and was named in two-thirds of the multiple custodian deals in 2016.
“There were more newly minted firms in 2016 than there were firms consolidated in transactions in our merger and acquisition study,” says Beatty. “We’ve never ended a year with fewer advisory firms than we started with. This is a unique marketplace that is still very much in growth mode.”
For its report, Schwab collected data from SEC RIA registration filings for firms established n 2016, comparing them to previous years.