Top Wealth Managers Announced

New York, NY, July 13, 2010–Assets under management have already recovered from the lows in 2008 and early 2009, and on average firms have more AUM today than they have had in their history–one of several key findings from WealthManagerWeb.com‘s 10th Annual Top Wealth Managers Survey, sponsored by Pershing Advisor Solutions. At the end of 2009 the average AUM for participants was $877 million–a 24% increase from the lows of December 31, 2008. Most of that recovery was due to market performance with a relatively small contribution from business development.

In addition to these industry trends, WealthManagerWeb.com reveals the 2010 Top Wealth Manager Rankings. Full coverage of the survey results includes Philip Palaveev’s exclusive Special Report and Analysis, articles, and profiles of firms.

Wealth managers had to meet several criteria to be included in the rankings; a firm must be an SEC registered investment advisor with its own IARD number; have minimum assets under advisement of $50 million; have individuals or high-net-worth individuals (as defined by the SEC) as more than half of its client base; and offer financial planning services.

In addition to the classic ranking on average assets per client, WealthManagerWeb.com delivers a new way of analyzing the rankings with an interactive database that enables visitors to look at firms sorted on many different attributes: alphabetically, by total AUM, average AUM per client, city or state, year the firm started or minimum fee. Special sections with the rankings will be published in the September issues of Investment Advisor and Research magazines.

“The firms that participate in the annual Top Wealth Managers survey are the lion’s share of the largest, most established registered investment advisors (RIAs), in America,” according to WealthManagerWeb.com‘s Editor-in-Chief Kathleen McBride. “These are the firms our survey partner, Fusion Advisor Network President Philip Palaveev, describes as the ones every RIA wants to be when they grow up.”

Some highlights from WealthManagerWeb.com‘s Top Wealth Manager survey report:

• Worries about job less, continued market volatility, taxes, inflation or deflation and interest rates are keeping clients awake at night.
• Of the Top Wealth Managers universe, 15% are family offices. Of those 93% are multi-family offices. There is a trend for single-family office to convert to multi-family offices, gaining scale while maintaining a very high level of service
• Due diligence goes in-house. Most firms (63%) conducting their due diligence in house.

This information is updated throughout the year, as Wealth Manager has started quarterly Top Wealth Managers Pulse mini-surveys with rankings. The next quarterly survey will be available for participation toward the end of July, and is based on data from the second quarter of 2010. For notice of future surveys, please click here.

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