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By 
September 24, 2019 at 12:00 PM
(Photo: Shutterstock)
The RIA business continues to expand while the brokerage industry contracts.
According to the latest Evolution Revolution report produced jointly by the Investment Adviser Association and National Regulatory Services, the number of SEC-registered investment advisory firms grew 3.3% over the past year to 12,933 while the number of broker-dealers fell 2.8% to 3,607.
RIA employment grew at an even faster rate, up 3.7% to 835,124, with over half (52%) of employees providing investment advisory services, including research. Their numbers rose 20,000 over the past year to 436,256.
The number of RIA clients increased at a much higher rate on a percentage basis. SEC-registered advisory firms reported a 26% jump in clients to 43 million, boosted in part by digital advice platforms.
Regulatory assets under management (RAUM) by RIAs also grew, to $83.7 trillion, almost four times the AUM reached in 2001. That figure, however, overstates assets because more than one advisor and fund subadvisors can claim the same assets, according to the report.
The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of assets since 2001 is 8.2%, far more than the 4.7% CAGR in the S&P 500, indicating that a good share of asset growth likely came from new clients in addition to gains in smaller cap stocks and other asset classes.
The typical RIA firm in 2019 has $341 million in AUM, nine employees and 141 accounts, according to the 2019 Evolution Revolution report. The firm is more than likely a limited liability company, located in one of 10 states: New York, California, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey and Ohio, listed in declining order of the number of firms.
The 5.7% growth in the number of firms in the western U.S. is almost three times the growth rate of the number of firms in the east. A little more than one-third of firms have more than one office.
Despite the increasing number of firms, just 148, equivalent to only 1.1% of SEC-registered advisors, manage almost 60%, or $50 trillion, of RIA assets. In contrast, close to 310,000 firms, managing less than $1 billion each, oversee a cumulative 3.1% of total RIA firm assets.
