This Week in Wealth

Ian, Andrew and Sam break down Citywire's latest scoop about long-short separately managed accounts, which have become one of the most popular new investing tools in the wealth management industry. Sam explains how he obtained documents which show how various RIA custodians assess and treat AQR's long-short strategies, plus the team discusses a pair of new major M&A processes getting underway.

Ian, Andrew and Sam analyze the recent round of layoffs to hit Commonwealth Financial Network's home office. Who was hit hardest and what do the cuts say about the state of its acquisition by LPL Financial? Plus, with Alex out, the trio discusses Charles Schwab's in-house wealth business and how it's bumping up against RIAs and LPL's deal to buy one of its largest affiliates ... and maybe a certain hit movie, too.

Three years after buying Focus Financial Partners, PE shop Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is pursuing a sale of a minority stake in the RIA financier. Ian, Andrew, Sam and Alex recap how we got here and explore who a prospective buyer could be.

The team also discusses Corient's update to a Form ADV after the $500bn RIA erroneously told regulators it was offering its advisors incentives to allocate client assets to alternative investments.

And they have the skinny on a class action lawsuit against Betterment alleging that the robo-advisor offered a cash sweep program that breached its fiduciary obligations to clients.

Ian, Andrew and Alex discuss the idea of a custodian taking minority stakes in RIAs. The same idea was discussed, at least at a conceptual level, by Fidelity in 2025, as Citywire exclusively reported. The team digs into the logic of such a move as well as the obvious conflicts it could create.

They also run the rule over two high-profile exits from broker-dealer Osaic, look at Goldman Sachs’ decision to get in the long-short SMA game, and check in on their World Cup predictions.

Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor joins This Week in Wealth for a special episode, recorded live at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago on June 17.

Ian, Alex, and Kunal discuss Morningstar’s relationship with RIAs, what the march of AI might mean for advisors (and their fees), how the research firm is approaching private markets (both analytically and commercially), and—most importantly—who will win the World Cup.

Ian and Andrew host James Poer, the chief executive of $170bn Kestra Holdings, for an extended discussion on why his firm chose to have another go-round with its original private equity owner, the lessons he learned from the 2008 financial crisis and why you shouldn't expect to see him at the helm of a public company anytime soon.

With Alex and Ian on the road, Andrew, Sam and Alec take over the pod to discuss the rollout of Charles Schwab’s new $5-per-account block trading fee, which has caused some understandable fretting among RIAs, as well as the court-ordered end of a high-profile legal beef between two of the country’s largest independent wealth managers (plus, a few notes on SpaceX’s mega-IPO and what it means for advisors and their clients).

Alex, Ian and Andrew celebrate Citywire's 10th anniversary of operating in the US with an extra-special news quiz covering the biggest stories we've written since Citywire RIA began publishing in 2018. How many can you name?

Alex, Ian and — live from New York! — Andrew discuss Citywire's recent scoops on Hightower pursuing a sale of a controlling stake and Summit Trail Advisors pursuing an outright sale, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. What do these kinds of deals mean for the RIA market? The team also checks in on a pair of million-dollar bets between Creative Planning CEO Peter Mallouk and "Shark Tank" star Mark Cuban.

Dimensional Fund Advisors is exploring a sale, sources told Citywire earlier in the week! But why now, who might buy it, and what would they get? These questions, and many more, are covered by Citywire editors Ian Wenik and Alex Steger in today’s episode of This Week in Wealth.

They also take a deep dive into Citywire’s annual RIA Pay Report, which looks at advisor compensation from all angles, including job function, location, gender, and whether a firm has PE backing.