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THE ANNUITIES ISSUE

JACKSON ON THE JUMP INSIDE THE NEW CEO’S DRIVE TO MAKE THE ANNUITY GIANT’S SUITE SWEETER

LEADING RIAs

Your Trusted Annuity Partner Help your clients protect and grow their retirement savings with Knighthead Life.

COMPETITIVE ANNUITIES DEDICATED SERVICE FINANCIAL STRENGTH

Knighthead Life is underwritten by Merit Life Insurance Co., rated A- (Excellent) by AM Best as of November 13, 2025. Knighthead Life is the brand name of Knighthead US Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiaries, Merit Life Insurance Co. (“Merit Life”) and Knighthead American Life Insurance Company (“KALIC”). Annuities are long-term insurance products designed for retirement accumulation or income and may only be offered by licensed insurance agents. Product availability, features, and guarantees vary by product and state and are not available in all states. Guarantees are backed solely by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company and are not insured by the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the NCUA, or any other government agency. Annuities are not bank deposits and are not guaranteed by any bank. For additional product information and details, visit www.knightheadlife.com. For the most current AM Best credit rating, visit www.ambest.com.

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Contents

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UPFRONT 2 Editorial

Why annuities are worth another look from RIAs

4 Statistics

What’s driving annuities growth?

SECTOR FOCUS 14 Walter fallout Mark Walter’s insurer probe fuels scrutiny of private equity’s affiliated investments in annuities

NEWS ANALYSIS

Annuities divide narrows

NEWS ANALYSIS

Advisors are pulling annuities and life insurance together into one conversation

C-SUITE

Jackson on the jump

Inside new CEO Don Cummings’ drive to maintain the insurer’s momentum

26 Altruist vs. Schwab The RIA custody market was thrown for a loop when Vanguard said it was buying fintech platform Altruist

OPINION 28 Alternative investments Investments into alternatives-related platforms have increased recently

Newswrap

34 Industry 36 Regulation 38 Retirement 40 Your Practice 42 Investing

INPROFILE

Knighthead makes private credit push

Annuities provider Knighthead Life has started investing in private credit after sitting out of the corporate lending boom entirely in 2025 VIDEOS

SPECIAL REPORT

Rising Stars Meet the rising stars of the RIA industry

SPECIAL REPORT

JONATHAN REILLY, PRESIDENT OF VOYA FINANCIAL ADVISORS, SITS DOWN WITH INVESTMENTNEWS ANCHOR GREGG GREENBERG TO EXPLAIN THE SOARING INTEREST IN ANNUITIES DESPITE THE SURGE IN PUBLICLY TRADED STOCKS.

Leading RIAs We salute the leading RIAs in the Eastern US

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IN 30.05 | 1

Editorial

The Trusted Resource for Independent-Minded Advisors InvestmentNews.com

Not your grandfather’s annuity: why RIAs should take another look

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BY JAMES ROGERS

hat do annuities and Bruce Lee have in common? I’m not about to deliver a punchline, but rather a quote that is often ascribed to the late martial arts icon: “Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.” This encapsulates the beauty of annuities. Sure, they may not generate the level of buzz that, say, ETFs have in recent years, but advisors ignore them at their peril. For clients eager to protect their assets, annuities, with their solid and predictable income stream, could be a perfect fit, particularly at a time of inflation and market volatility. Why, then, have some advisors been resistant to their appeal? “A lot of RIAs have kind of shied away from it,” Andree Mohr, president of Integrated Partners, told me during a recent interview. Many independent advisors got away from annuities and life insurance because they didn’t want to be seen as a salesperson, according to Mohr. “We’ve always thought that if you really want to be a holistic planner, there really is a time and place for it,” she added. Then there is the perception (albeit misguided) that annuities are, well, a bit boring. But that isn’t a bad thing – annuities may not garner Bitcoin or AI-levels of attention (or headlines), but there’s a lot to be said for keeping things steady and reliable. Especially when a long and comfortable retirement is on the line. There’s also the broader issue of education. “Most people don’t even know what an annuity is,” said Barbara Pietrangelo, a financial planner with Prudential Wealth Advisors, during a recent event I attended in Manhattan. “It’s a matter of talking to the people about what are the benefits, and so income for life is huge … a lot of people are not familiar with how annuities work, and there’s so many different terms on them.” “It’s really important to make sure that you’re helping the people choose what’s best for them,” she added. “So

EDITORIAL VP - Editorial: James Burton Managing Editor: James Rogers Senior Columnist: Bruce Kelly Retirement & Planning Editor, Multimedia Anchor: Gregg Greenberg Journalists: Andrew Cohen, Leo Almazora Senior Sponsored Content Writer: Manal Ali

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I think it’s a lot of just educating your clients.” The good news is that the annuity message is getting through. Last year US annuity sales hit $464.1 billion, up 7 percent from the prior year, according to the Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association (LIMRA). Within that number, sales of fixed index annuities were $127.9 billion, an increase of 1 percent on 2024, but a new sales record and the fifth consecutive year of annual sales growth.

“Things have changed quite a bit – they’re simpler, easy to implement into a portfolio.” Advisors have told InvestmentNews how annuity income can alleviate retirementrelated anxiety, as well as help deal with volatile markets. We are also living in an era that has been described as “Peak 65,” thanks to the 4.1 million or more Americans who hit that age every year, many of whom lack pensions or other income sources to cover

Advisors ignore annuities at their peril LIMRA says that favorable economic conditions, expanded distribution, and growing investor demand for protected lifetime income have been driving annuity sales. Growth is continuing into 2026 – last month LIMRA reported that, in the first half of the year, total annuity sales reached $228.7 billion, 1 percent higher than the same period last year, marking a new first-half record. Perceptions are clearly shifting. “Today’s annuities … they’re not your grandfather’s annuities,” Daniel Biagini, SVP and head of independent sales at American Equity, which offers fixed index annuities, told me recently.

their basic living expenses in retirement, according to LIMRA. That’s a lot of clients asking the same question: will my money last as long as I do? For advisors who have kept annuities at arm’s length, the answer doesn’t have to be a sales pitch. It could be a planning conversation – one that starts with a client’s income floor and works outward. Bruce Lee (or whoever actually said it) had a point. In retirement planning, the slow and steady approach tends to win out. Advisors who ignore that may find their clients looking for it somewhere else.

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Protective® is a registered trademark of Protective Life Insurance Company. The Protective trademarks logos and service marks are property of Protective Life Insurance Company and are protected by trademark and/or other proprietary rights and laws. Protective refers to Protective Life Insurance Company (PLICO) and its affiliates, including Protective Life and Annuity Insurance Company (PLAIC). PLICO, founded in Birmingham, AL, and is licensed in Ne or . Protective Life Insurance Company does not solicit usiness in the state of Ne

, is located in Omaha, NE, and is licensed in all states e cluding Ne

or . PLAIC is located in

or , nor is it authori ed to do so.

. .

THE ANNUITIES ISSUE IN NUMBERS WHAT’S STRESSING AMERICANS OUT? Research by Edelman Financial Engines found almost three-quarters of Americans who feel stressed are weighed down by money issues, either from the economy or their own personal finances.

LIFETIME INCOME LIFTS MENTAL HEALTH Research by BlackRock confirmed that guaranteed lifetime income solutions give retirees peace of mind. Among those who get at least $25,000 annually from an annuity, 72 percent said it helped them worry less about running out of money, and 58 percent reported fewer concerns about their day-to-day finances.

Yearly income from annuity

<$10k

$10k–$24k

62%

From $219 billion in 2020, annuity sales in the US have grown to exceed $464 billion in 2025, driven by strong equity markets, attractive yields, and rising demand for downside protection.

$25k+

72%

52%

ANNUITIES: A HALF-DECADE GROWTH STORY

58%

55% 48%

The economy in general

41%

Personal finances Worry less about running out of money

36% Politics/political climate

Worry less about dayto-day finances

Source: BlackRock research report, When Nest Eggs Need a Safety Net, 2024.

RIAS: A GROWING OPPORTUNITY In sharp contrast to previous years when the independent channel turned heads, Goldman Sachs’ 2025 survey of annuity distributors found almost half see the RIA channel as the greatest growth opportunity, supported by broader trends of RIAs moving upmarket on the wealth spectrum.

33% Health/medical issues

45%

RIA 38%

Independent 8%

Wirehouse

27% Work/career

Source: Edelman Financial Engines Financial Confidence Report, 2026.

Specialty markets

Bank

Captive

P&C

1% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Source: Goldman Sachs Annuity Industry Survey 2025.

4 | IN 30.05

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TOTAL ANNUITY SALES ($ BILLIONS)

$500B $400B

$464.1B

$434.9B $385.4B

$300B $312.8B

$200B

$254.6B $219B

$100B $O

2021

2020

2022

2023

2024

2025 Source: LIMRA industry sales figures.

ADVISORS AREN’T BOOSTING ANNUITIES Research from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research found roughly twothirds of financial professionals recommend annuities to less than half their retired client base.

WHY AMERICANS PAUSE ON ANNUITIES According to LIMRA, fees are the top barrier holding pre-retirees back from getting protected lifetime income, while retired consumers were more concerned about controlling their savings.

32%

Pre-retirees

Worried about fees or costs

24% 21%

10%

75% to 100%

All clients

Unsure who to trust for guidance

Can’t estimate

Not understanding how protective lifetime income products work

Source: Boston College Center for Retirement Research report, Do Financial Professionals Recommend Annuities?, December 2023.

InvestmentNews.com

21% 27% 25%

Concerned about locking up their money

1% to 25% 25% to 50% 50% to 75%

35%

Prefer to keep control of their savings

None

Retirees

26% 19% 18% 13% 16% 14% Source: LIMRA Retirement Income Readiness Report, July 2026.

IN 30.05 | 5

THE ANNUITIES ISSUE NEWS ANALYSIS

ADVISORS MERGE ANNUITIES AND LIFE INSURANCE INTO ONE CONVERSATION Industry experts say retirement income planning increasingly blends annuities with life insurance as advisors move beyond product silos BY GREGG GREENBERG

nnuities and life insurance have long lived in separate corners of a financial plan – sold by different specialists, tracked on different systems, pitched in different meetings. That divide is narrowing fast, according to industry professionals who say the shift is being driven less by new products than by a change in how advisors think about the job itself. “As advisors shift from a product-centric mindset to one focused on client outcomes, they’ve become more open to bringing annuities and life insurance into a single, integrated planning conversation,” says Ben Rizzuto, wealth strategist with the Specialist Consulting Group at Janus Henderson Investors. He points to the Janus Henderson Investors 2024 Investor Survey, which found that 54 percent of retirees are seeking greater stability through increased use of annuities. “The idea of creating a ‘retirement paycheck’ has gained traction as everyday costs rise and investors hear more about the risks of outliving their savings,” Rizzuto says. “Losing the security of a salary is both a financial and psychological hurdle, because every dollar spent in retirement feels like a dollar that won’t be replaced. Research also shows that many retirees spend far less than they safely could. Introducing guaranteed income through

separate compliance tracks, and separate wholesaler conversations.” That separation carried a real cost, he adds. “For years, the industry left planning gaps on the table because these conversations happened in isolation. When you connect them, you uncover risks and opportunities that would otherwise be missed. Most importantly, bringing these workflows together also strengthens oversight and suitability by putting more of the process into a consistent, transparent framework. When annuities and life insurance sit inside separate systems, it is harder to supervise recommendations, compare options, and maintain a clear view of the client’s broader protection strategy.”

THE MARKET IS ALREADY MOVING

The numbers back up the anecdotal shift. According to LIMRA’s final 2025 sales survey results, total US annuity sales reached a record $464.1 billion in 2025, up from the prior year’s then-record total, as fixed indexed and registered index-linked annuities – now nearly half the market – continued to drive growth. Individual life insurance premium also set a new record in 2025, topping $17.5 billion, a 10 percent increase over 2024 and one of four record years in the past five, per LIMRA.

“The industry is what created the silos, through separate product training, separate platforms, separate compliance tracks, and separate wholesaler conversations” JAY CHARLES, LUMA FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGIES annuities can help clients feel secure enough to use their savings more confidently and live a more fulfilling retirement.” Jay Charles, head of insurance solutions at Luma Financial Technologies, argues the client’s own concerns were never siloed to begin with. “People don’t separate their fear of running out of money from their concern about what happens to a spouse or what they leave to their kids,” Charles says. “These concerns have always been connected. The industry is what created the silos, through separate product training, separate platforms,

6 | IN 30.05

“We’ve been advocating for this integration for a long time, and we built our platform around the idea that annuities and life insurance belong in the same planning ecosystem, whether advisors need to evaluate them side by side or independently,” Charles says. “But the bigger shift is an industry mindset one. Carriers, BDs, and compliance teams all need to stop treating these as fundamentally different conversations, because clients never did.” Libet Anderson, business development at Cetera Wealth Partners, says the two products should never have been separated in the first place. “It just

ANNUITIES (LIMRA’S 2025 U.S. INDIVIDUAL ANNUITY SALES SURVEY) Total US annuity sales climbed 7% year over year to $464.1B Registered index-linked annuities (RILAs) hit $79.5B for the year, up 20% from 2024 Traditional variable annuities rose 8% for the year to $63.1B Fixed indexed annuities (FIAs) reached $127.9B, up 1% from 2024 Fixed-rate deferred annuities increased 6% to $165.3B for the year Single premium immediate annuities (SPIAs) rose 6% to $14.4B Deferred income annuities (DIAs) slipped 3% to $4.8B for the year

doesn’t make sense to work to build an investment portfolio for retirement but not protect those assets should something happen,” Anderson says. “With the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans and the corresponding shift of risk and discipline from employer to employee, we now have more retirees unprepared for the retirement they imagined. Since more retirees are dependent on Social Security, life insurance and annuities become an even more critical piece of the planning process.”

WHERE ANNUITIES AND LIFE INSURANCE FIT TOGETHER

Rizzuto sees the two tools playing complementary but distinct roles. “In today’s volatile markets and shifting tax landscape, annuities and life insurance serve very different but complementary roles,” he says. “Annuities help clients create an income floor, manage sequence of returns risk, and avoid withdrawing from portfolios at the worst possible time. Life insurance becomes most valuable when clients need tax-free liquidity for

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“Let’s hope we all tear down these silos and help advisors help their clients reach their financial goals” LIBET ANDERSON, CETERA WEALTH PARTNERS protection, estate planning, or legacy goals – especially for higher-income and high-net-worth households.” He adds: “In an uncertain environment, flexibility matters. Separating ‘spendable income’ from ‘growth capital’ helps clients stay invested and reduces the behavioral mistakes that volatility tends to trigger.” Charles starts from the client’s need rather than the product. The average American now spends roughly 20 years in retirement, and about 40 percent of retirees say they worry about outliving their savings, he says. “They want more certainty around retirement cash flow and more protection against the possibility of living longer than expected or being forced to draw from a portfolio at the wrong time, and that is where annuities can make a lot of sense,” Charles says. “Life insurance addresses a different set of financial needs. It can help protect a surviving spouse, support estate planning, create liquidity, help with wealth transfer, or address longterm care concerns when hybrid solutions are part of the mix.” He adds that advisors who bring both income and protection into one conversation are “fundamentally more valuable to their clients. They’re not just managing assets, they’re helping manage outcomes.” Anderson, who recently earned the Retirement Management Analyst (RMA) designation, says retirement income planning is a distinct discipline from retirement planning generally. “Advisors need to know the level of ‘fundedness’ of their clients so they can properly advise them,” she says. “Someone

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ANNUITIES: CORE FINANCIAL PLANNING ROLES Income floor

who might be able to retire, but can’t take too much risk, might need some guaranteed income to ensure they can take care of essential expenses. If an advisor is truly exercising holistic planning, the protection side cannot be ignored. With market volatility, the plan can simply fall apart under something like the old ‘4 percent rule’ with no additional guidance.” Recent research on how retirement income strategies hold up against traditional withdrawal rules has reinforced that point.

WHAT’S STILL HOLDING ADVISORS BACK

Even as sentiment shifts, adoption lags. Rizzuto says many advisors still identify as either “investment first” or “insurance first,” and that self-image gets in the way. “The real starting point isn’t the advisor’s identity; it’s the client problem we’re trying to solve,” he says. “When advisors frame the conversation around needs like income floors, longevity protection, survivor benefits, or legacy replacement, they’re often more open to using annuities and life insurance effectively. These tools shouldn’t be treated as binary decisions.” Charles points to a 2023 Cerulli Associates study he says found that nearly 60 percent of advisors cited complexity and time constraints as their primary reason for not incorporating insurance solutions more broadly. “Too many tools, too many illustration systems, too much friction between identifying the right solution and getting it in front of a client,” Charles says. “At Luma, we believe complexity itself is not the problem, but failing to manage it well is.”

Longevity protection Sequence-of-returns risk management Reduce anxiety-driven decisions during volatility Tax-deferred growth Anderson traces part of the gap to career paths. “Many advisors started out on the insurance side and then got into wealth management and in many cases left the protection side on the sidelines,” she says. “To be blunt, it is much more fun to put clients’ assets to work and watch them grow and accumulate wealth than it is to pay insurance premiums.” She notes that newer hybrid products and emerging planning software are beginning to close that gap, a trend visible in how technology providers are rebuilding retirement-income workflows for advisors. “Let’s hope we all tear down these silos and help advisors help their clients reach their financial goals,” she says.

IN 30.05 | 7

THE ANNUITIES ISSUE INPROFILE

KNIGHTHEAD ENTERS PRIVATE CREDIT After sitting out corporate private credit in 2025, annuities firm Knighthead Life built a roughly 7 percent allocation, with its CEO saying wider spreads now compensate for illiquidity BY ANDREW COHEN

nnuities provider Knighthead Life has started investing in private credit after sitting out of the corporate lending boom entirely in 2025, CEO Edward Massaro tells InvestmentNews. “We have about a 7 percent allocation across our portfolio to private credit,” says Massaro. “We didn’t have any exposure in 2025 to corporate private credit.” The US private credit default rate reached a record high of 6.3 percent for the trailing 12 months ended August 2026, according to Fitch Ratings. Massaro says that most of Knighthead’s private credit exposure comes through large outside managers, but he distinguishes those managers from private credit firms that have recently faced elevated redemption requests and other pressures. “Private credit is no different than syndicated loans in the 80s or the high yield market in the 90s. There’s less liquidity, but it’s an appropriate product for insurance carriers [when] done the right way,” says Massaro. “At the end of the day, we do have long-lived liabilities.” Knighthead had no exposure to corporate private credit in 2025 because credit spreads had tightened to levels that Massaro says did not adequately compensate the company for illiquidity. Spreads have since widened to the “mid fours, sometimes 500” basis points over SOFR, he says, referring to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate benchmark interest rate. “You don’t have to make an outsized return. What you have to do is get your money back. And I think we’ve proven that we can do that,” Massaro says of investing in private credit. Annuity sales tracked by LIMRA reached $121.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026 as yearto-date total annuity sales reached $228.7 billion − 1 percent higher than the first half of 2025 − to set a

8 | IN 30.05

new first-half record. In addition to about 7 percent in corporate private credit, Massaro says roughly 20 percent of the portfolio backing Knighthead’s annuities is in first mortgages and 30 percent to 40 percent is in public fixed income, with the rest including structured credit. The company holds almost no public equities. “What private credit has done is allow carriers who are professional investors to use that in the portfolio construction to provide competitive rates,” says Massaro, adding that traditional annuitants put between $50,000 to $500,000 of their net worth into an annuity. “Agents and advisors aren’t always saying, ‘Let’s go for the last five basis points. Let’s go for the highest crediting rate,’” Massaro says. “What’s backing that carrier? What’s the capital backing that carrier? What’s its track record?”

KNIGHTHEAD AT A GLANCE Founded 2014, Cayman Islands Group assets About $7B US entry Late 2024, via Merit Life Insurance Co. US annuity premiums Just under $500M in year one; doubled to $1B expected in 2026 Annuity portfolio mix • 20% first mortgages 30–40% public fixed income • 7% corporate private credit Remainder includes structured credit Distribution 3–5 main IMOs; bank and broker-dealer channels planned for 2027 Sports stake Birmingham City FC, about 5% of reinsurance portfolio Source: Knighthead Life CEO Edward Massaro

reinsurance. The group now manages about $7 billion in assets. Knighthead entered the US market in late 2024 by acquiring Merit Life Insurance Co., which now operates under Knighthead Life. The US business wrote just under $500 million in annuity premiums

“You don’t have to make an outsized return. What you have to do is get your money back. And I think we’ve proven that we can do that” EDWARD MASSARO, KNIGHTHEAD LIFE “Maybe I don’t need the last five basis points. Maybe I’d rather buy something that’s very competitive, hits my income and retirement needs. But if it’s 10 or 20 basis points lower than the other carrier who I think is doing some things maybe I’m not that comfortable with, that’s what we should do. That’s where we like to play in the market.” Knighthead Insurance Group launched in 2014 with the formation of Knighthead Annuity & Life Assurance Company in the Cayman Islands, initially offering offshore annuities before expanding into

in its first year and expects to reach about $1 billion this year, according to Massaro. “We chose to make sure we were profitable working with the right tech-forward distribution partners to make the experience very pleasant,” says Massaro, adding that Knighthead distributes annuities via three to five main IMOs (Independent Marketing Organizations). “We’ll branch out next year as we enter the bank and broker dealer channel. We’ll use some of those same independent marketing organizations

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INPROFILE

“There’s less liquidity, but it’s an appropriate product for insurance carriers [when] done the right way. At the end of the day, we do have long-lived liabilities” EDWARD MASSARO, KNIGHTHEAD LIFE to do that. Some of that we’ll do direct,” he says. Knighthead’s international business also has a small allocation to sports investments, though Massaro says the exposure does not currently extend to its US annuity carrier. About 5 percent of the assets in Knighthead’s reinsurance portfolio are invested in Birmingham

City Football Club, the English soccer team owned by Knighthead Capital Management. Investors with minority stakes in the club include NFL icon Tom Brady. Massaro estimated that Knighthead invested about $20 million to $30 million into Birmingham City since first buying into the club in 2023.

“We think we bought it at a very attractive valuation. It’s appreciated nicely,” says Massaro. “A lot of [sports investments] tend not to have cash flow in the beginning as they grow. But if you’re matching your ALM [asset-liability management] and you’re looking at your liquidity, there’s a place in the portfolio for it.” Brady appears alongside Knighthead Capital Management co-CEO Tom Wagner in the Brady & The Blues docuseries that debuted on Amazon Prime last year. Birmingham now plays in the second-tier Championship division of English soccer, with its stadium branded as St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park. “We look at the sports industry all the time. I think there’s some excellent things to be done. They’re typically very good [investments], and they appreciate better than most other assets,” says Massaro.

10 | IN 30.05

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9/26

THE ANNUITIES ISSUE C-SUITE

DON CUMMINGS ROLLS WITH ‘THE BIG MO’ Jackson Financial’s new CEO on maintaining momentum at the annuity heavyweight BY GREGG GREENBERG THEY CALL it “The Big Mo” in politics

and professional sports. It’s slang for a wave of momentum that seems hard to stop. One could also apply the term to incoming CEO Don Cummings’ mission at Jackson Financial. The annuity provider has emerged as an industry leader in traditional variable annuities and a top-five seller of RILAs, and has recently flexed its muscles in fixed and fixed index annuities, giving it a broader platform to serve financial professionals and their clients. Shares of Jackson are up over 520 percent since Cummings’ predecessor Laura Prieskorn took the former Prudential PLC division public in September 2021, far outperforming the 72 percent rise in the S&P 500.

position in June 2024 and was tapped this past July to take the company’s top spot as of October 1, 2026. When it comes to replacing Prieskorn, a 17-year Jackson veteran, Cummings says the transition represents the next chapter for the company, not a change in fundamental direction. “We have a clear growth strategy centered on product diversification, expanded distribution, enhanced investment capabilities, and stronger digital experiences for financial professionals and their clients. I intend to maintain the qualities that have long distinguished Jackson, including disciplined execution, financial strength, thoughtful risk management and exceptional customer support,” Cummings says.

“The most challenging path will be ensuring that we continue to evolve at the pace required by changing consumer needs, technology, financial professional expectations, and an increasingly competitive marketplace” “Jackson has differentiated itself through the combination of product innovation, disciplined risk management, financial strength, an industry-leading distribution network, technology, and awardwinning service,” says Cummings. “My focus is on continuing our momentum and delivering longterm success for Jackson, our shareholders, our distribution partners, and the clients we serve.”

DOING THE JACKSON JUMP

Cummings spent almost 13 years at insurance heavyweight AIG before joining Jackson as controller and chief accounting officer. He rose to the CFO

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At the same time, he is well aware of the need for Jackson to adapt as consumer needs, advisor preferences, technology, and the competitive environment evolve. That means evaluating opportunities to expand Jackson’s product lineup, deepen their distribution relationships, and reduce friction in doing business. All those things require investment, which is where Jackson’s IPO half a decade ago gave it a competitive advantage that continues to this day. “Becoming an independent public company was a significant moment that gave Jackson greater ability to establish its own priorities, allocate capital,

DON CUMMINGS, JACKSON FINANCIAL CEO FAMILY: Married with five children EDUCATION: BBA, accounting, data processing from Morehead State University

HOMETOWN: Grayson, Kentucky HOBBIES: Watching F1 racing, gardening, running, biking

and invest according to the opportunities we saw in the US retirement market. It also brought greater accountability and discipline as we established our public company infrastructure and began communicating directly with shareholders about our strategy and performance,” Cummings says. Aside from its ability to tap the public markets as a publicly traded company, Jackson has also linked up with a deep pocketed private equity partner in TPG this past February, which included a $500 million investment. TPG brings expertise in investment-grade, asset-based finance, and direct lending, while PPM – Jackson’s in-house investment management team – continues to manage the core of the company’s investment portfolio. Jackson began allocating capital to TPG-managed assets during the first quarter, and by the second quarter the collaboration had produced attractive investment opportunities and supported higher new-money yields. Over time, Cummings believes the relationship can support profitable growth in spread-based products, diversify their earnings, and strengthen Jackson’s product competitiveness.

MAKING THE SUITE SWEETER

Jackson spent a lot of time enhancing and expanding its product lineup in the past two years, launching the fourth generation of its RILA suite, Jackson Market Link Pro 4, and introducing the Jackson Income Assurance Suite, a fixed index annuity (FIA) with an embedded guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit (GMWB). Cummings says he is pleased with the breadth of Jackson’s current product portfolio and the market response to its new offerings. “Variable annuities remain a core strength, while our RILA suite has created significant

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JACKSON FINANCIAL STATISTICS Market cap: As of August 31, 2026: approximately $9B Revenue: As of Q2 2026: $3.07B Employees: 3,890+ Headquarters: Lansing, MI Year founded: 1961

“Looking forward, we’ll be focused on using AI and other technologies to continue enhancing our world class service and sales support capabilities,” Cummings says. When it comes to customer support − long one of Jackson’s greatest strengths – Cummings believes AI can also play a role in surfacing the right information faster for our service teams. Nevertheless, he says AI will augment rather than replace the people policyholders rely on. “Ultimately, we want every interaction with Jackson – whether by phone, online or through an advisor – to be easy, responsive, and worth the time,” Cummings says.

RECORD HIGHS AND RISING RATES

“My focus is on continuing our momentum and delivering long-term success for Jackson, our shareholders, our distribution partners, and the clients we serve” momentum and Jackson Income Assurance FIA has expanded our income and protection capabilities,” Cummings says. “Looking forward, we will continue evaluating opportunities to innovate across different product categories. Any additions or changes will be driven by advisor feedback, consumer needs, sustainable economics, and our disciplined approach to risk.” When it comes to approaching technology – an area of risk and opportunity in the current AI environment − Jackson made a big digital push this

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past summer by launching a dedicated website for advisors. The website provides personalized content, self-service enhancements, and new tools that help advisors find the right Jackson products for their clients and connect with our sales team. Cummings says the early results have been “encouraging” as the site has attracted a large audience of financial professionals, including many who have never done business with Jackson, while also supporting growth in product sales, digital interactions, and web-based tool utilization.

While the spike in interest rates may be unnerving stock and bond investors, they also make many annuities more attractive by supporting competitive crediting rates, income benefits, and investment returns, particularly across fixed and other spreadbased products. They can also give insurers a broader set of opportunities when investing new premiums, although these opportunities must be pursued with strong asset-liability management and disciplined credit underwriting. From his perspective, Cummings is enjoying the benefits of investing new money at rates above the yield on his existing portfolio, along with the contributions of Jackson’s expanding spread-based business. Industry-wide, LIMRA has cited rising rates as one factor supporting demand across all products. “While interest rates will change over time, it’s critical that products and investment strategies are designed to remain competitive and sustainable across market cycles rather than optimized for one particular environment,” Cummings says. Meanwhile, he maintains that strong equity markets do not eliminate the investing and retirement risks that financial professionals and their clients are trying to manage. Many consumers want to participate in market growth while also introducing a level of downside protection and creating guaranteed income that can last throughout retirement. That helps explain why LIMRA’s second quarter 2026 results showed record first half annuity sales and record quarterly RILA sales, even with equity markets reaching new highs, according to Cummings. And as for fees, that ubiquitous fly in the annuity ointment, Cummings swears Jackson will “remain competitive while maintaining disciplined underwriting, sound risk management, and sustainable economics as annuities represent long-term commitments to policyholders.” Adds Cummings about his new responsibilities as CEO: “The most challenging path will be ensuring that we continue to evolve at the pace required by changing consumer needs, technology, financial professional expectations, and an increasingly competitive marketplace.” That, and keeping The Big Mo going.

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THE ANNUITIES ISSUE SECTOR FOCUS

Walter fallout tests state annuity regulators Mark Walter’s insurer probe fuels scrutiny of private equity’s affiliated investments in annuities, and whether state regulators can keep up INSIDE DELAWARE LIFE’S BALANCE SHEET

39%

The share of Delaware Life’s invested assets tied to Walterrelated parties at the end of 2025, up from about 3% previously reported

Source: InvestmentNews

45%

Private credit’s share of Delaware Life’s nearly $42B in debt investments, up from 9% in 2014 Source: The Wall Street Journal

97%

The share of its Federal Home Loan Bank borrowing capacity Delaware Life used in 2025, compared with about 40% at traditional life insurers

op to per ma is co cap o sh t

Source: The Wall Street Journal

he unraveling of billionaire Mark Walter’s insurance and investment empire is reviving questions about whether the state-based system overseeing life insurers and annuity companies has kept pace with the industry’s ties to private equity and affiliated investments. Walter’s Delaware Life Insurance Co. and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co. disclosed in June 26 filings that federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked why the companies did not disclose that billions of dollars of their private credit holdings backed other parts of Walter’s businesses. Delaware

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Life had told regulators that about 3 percent of its invested assets, roughly $1.4 billion, involved parties related to Walter’s other businesses. The corrected figure is more than $17 billion, at least 39 percent of invested assets at the end of 2025. The insurers are at the center of investigations by the FBI, the SEC, and the US attorney’s office in Manhattan. Walter, CEO of Guggenheim Partners, owns them through Group 1001 under his holding company, TWG Global. Walter and the companies have denied wrongdoing and said no fraud occurred.

“Insurance companies that are backed by private equity firms have been entering the market of annuities, and sometimes very aggressively” SHERYL J. MOORE, MOORE MARKET INTELLIGENCE Walter sold his majority stake in the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner for $12.5 billion on August 12, less than a month after the probe was first reported. S&P Global Ratings revised Delaware Life’s outlook to negative while affirming its A− rating. Truist Financial Corp. and Fifth Third Bancorp paused sales

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*A ris su

A Sy m

A DV E R T I S E M E N T

Five reasons to consider a RILA in retirement planning Turn the tables on uncertainty with a focus on guarantees and growth BY ANDREW FARRELL, MSJ SVP, RETIREMENT SALES, DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING

olatile markets, global unrest and higher prices can make even seasoned investors question their portfolio decisions. For clients nearing or in retirement, market uncertainty may be hard to ignore.

They may still need growth, but they may also need to take less risk as withdrawals approach. Balancing those needs can create an opening to discuss a registered index-linked annuity,* or RILA.

WHAT CAN A RILA DO FOR YOUR CLIENTS?

Opportunity for market-linked growth

Protection against some downside risk

Flexibility when needs change

Options that address family considerations

RILAs can provide opportunities for money to grow based on the performance of available market indexes. Growth is generally subject to contract terms such as caps, participation rates or spreads, so clients should understand how the selected option credits returns.

RILAs may offer a choice of buffers or floors that absorb or limit a portion of index losses over a set period. The protection is not absolute, but the ability to select a level of downside protection can help align the contract allocations with a client’s comfort with market risk.

Some RILAs may allow access to a portion of the contract value if a client’s circumstances change. Terms, limits and potential charges vary, making liquidity needs an important part of the initial discussion rather than an afterthought.

More control over the balance of growth and protection A range of index options, protection levels and available features may allow clients to choose how much market exposure they are willing to accept. Some contracts may also include features intended to lock in gains or adjust allocations at specified times.

Depending on the contract, a RILA may include a death benefit designed to protect some or all of the amount contributed for beneficiaries. Reviewing the calculation, limits and conditions can help clients understand what the feature may provide for their family.

Keep the planning need at the center

Turn uncertainty into a more focused retirement conversation

A long list of product features can overwhelm clients, particularly when markets may already feel confusing. Start with the planning need to make the discussion more accessible. Does the client still need growth? How much loss are they prepared to absorb? Could their need for access change? Are legacy considerations part of the decision?

As clients move closer to retirement, awareness of the full range of available options becomes more important. A RILA may help address the need for growth and some protection, but the decision should begin with the role the money must play in the client’s broader plan.

The answers can help determine whether a RILA deserves a place alongside other retirement assets. They can also help you explain some of the tradeoffs: Greater downside protection may come with less growth potential, and access to money may be subject to contract provisions or charges.

Watch the Spotlight on Retirement Income series.

Important information * A registered index-linked annuity is a long-term insurance contract designed for retirement purposes. It is subject to market risk, including possible loss of principal. Downside protection, growth potential, liquidity and death benefit features are subject to contract terms, limits and availability. Withdrawals may be subject to surrender charges and tax consequences. Annuities are issued by Symetra Life Insurance Company, 777 108th Ave NE, Suite 1200, Bellevue, WA 98004. Neither Symetra Life Insurance Company nor its employees provide investment, tax or legal advice or endorse any particular method of investing. Individuals should seek appropriate professional advice before making savings and investing decisions.

SECTOR FOCUS

PRIVATE EQUITY’S FOOTPRINT IN INSURANCE 32.5%

The share of US annuity sales coming through insurers with at least some private equity backing in the most recent quarter, down from about 40% in 2024 Source: Moore Market Intelligence

47%

The share of the US life industry’s collateral loans held by Security Benefit, owned by Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries, as of December 2024 Source: Moody’s

13%

Private credit’s share of US insurers’ cash and invested assets at the end of 2025, roughly $1.2T in total, according to state regulators Source: NAIC

of Delaware Life products in late August. On October 6, Bloomberg reported that Dan Towriss, CEO of both insurers, told prosecutors he was unaware the firms had lent more than $20 billion to Walter’s other businesses.

REGULATORS ON THE DEFENSIVE

US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, asked the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on September 10 how state regulators are addressing risks from private investment firms’ ties to insurers. She wrote that life insurers’ private credit holdings more than doubled from $386 billion in 2014 to $849 billion in 2024. She warned that such loans are often “illiquid, difficult to price or value.” The NAIC, led by Virginia Insurance Commissioner Scott White, pushed back in a September 24 letter.“The continuing modernization of these tools does not reflect an insurance regulatory vacuum requiring enhanced federal guardrails,” the group wrote. It also told Warren it was “not aware of any material instance” of a private firm failing to disclose or misclassifying risky investments made with policyholder premiums. It declined to comment on company-specific matters. The letter said that since 2023, an asset issued by an affiliate or containing an affiliate’s obligation must be reported as affiliated regardless of how it is structured. Starting with year-end 2026 filings, insurers must report private investments under a new standardized disclosure.

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Pete Dziedzic, president and general counsel of Life Insurance Strategies Group, a firm that does not sell insurance products, says the Walter case exposes a gap in regulators’ tools rather than a lapse in effort. “The 3 percent versus the 40 percent, like no regulator looked into that,” Dziedzic says.“The idea that the regulators didn’t do their job isn’t accurate… The regulators don’t have the kind of right framework to do what they need to do given the new world we live in.”

mutual insurers. US annuity sales hit a first-half record of $228.7 billion in 2026, according to LIMRA. “These entities often partner with an offshore reinsurer as well as an asset management company,” Moore says. “From my understanding, there is a huge difference in the reporting that’s required … for business in the contiguous US versus Cayman or Bermuda.”

INSIDE THE PORTFOLIO

About 60 percent of indexed annuity sales come through independent agents, and distributors largely screen carriers by financial strength rating, Moore says. She says agents are “definitely asking more questions,” citing recent insurer failures, most of them at private equity-backed carriers. That concern sharpened in September. Florida suspended Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Co., an Advantage Capital Holdings (A-CAP) insurer, after South Carolina’s regulator moved to place it into

Private credit now makes up about 45 percent of Delaware Life’s nearly $42 billion in debt investments, up from 9 percent in 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported September 28. Two of the insurer’s three largest investments involve Walter affiliates. Of $6.3 billion in affiliated loans with reported ratings, about 80 percent were rated BBB or lower, the lowest investment-grade tier. Delaware Life also used 97 percent of its Federal Home Loan Bank borrowing

THE BURDEN ON ADVISORS

“There really isn’t an incentive as exists now for these private equity-owned carriers to always be good or do the right thing” PETE DZIEDZIC, LIFE INSURANCE STRATEGIES GROUP capacity in 2025, compared with about 40 percent at traditional life insurers. Dziedzic says the disclosure failure may be specific to Delaware Life, but the model is not.“This idea of affiliate investments isn’t just unique to Delaware Life,” he says. The question, he adds, is how much carriers can diligence investments themselves “versus how much are they being forced to take whatever their affiliated money managers [are] making them do.” US life insurers reported $321 billion in affiliated investments at year-end 2025, about 5 percent of their cash and invested assets, according to the NAIC. The NAIC counted 137 private equity-owned insurers at year-end 2024. Walter is not the only Dodgers co-owner with a life insurer. Todd Boehly, who holds a 20 percent stake in the team, owns Security Benefit through Eldridge Industries. Security Benefit held about 47 percent of the life industry’s collateral loans as of December 2024, according to Moody’s, and those loans made up about 25 percent of its invested assets. Iowa regulators called collateral loans “the most easily exploited asset class for capital arbitrage.”

PRIVATE EQUITY’S ANNUITY PUSH

Insurers backed by private equity have entered the annuities market “sometimes very aggressively,” a trend picking up since about 2012, says Sheryl J. Moore, CEO of Moore Market Intelligence. She estimated about 25 such insurers have entered the market since then. According to Moore’s sales research, 32.54 percent of annuity sales came through insurers with at least some private equity backing in the most recent quarter, down from about 40 percent in 2024. She attributes the decline mostly to rising overall sales, including gains at

rehabilitation. Florida found an impaired surplus of almost $140 million. AM Best downgraded Atlantic Coast and sister company Sentinel Security Life. A-CAP has agreed to mediation with South Carolina and said its companies continue to pay claims. “Even the regulators doing their work weren’t able to diagnose the problem here in Delaware Life,” Dziedzic says.“So how is, you know, Joe Smith, the life insurance guy, supposed to do that?” If a carrier fails, most states’ guaranty associations cover $250,000 in present value of annuity benefits, funded by assessments on other insurers. Dziedzic says that structure limits the downside for private equity owners.“There really isn’t an incentive as exists now for these private equity-owned carriers to always be good or do the right thing,” he says.

THE SPORTS CONNECTION

A September episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out traced Walter’s insurer−sports ties back to 2014. That year, EquiTrust Life Insurance Co., then owned by Guggenheim, lent $350 million to the Walter entity behind the Dodgers’ SportsNet LA channel. The hosts said the loans weren’t disclosed as affiliate transactions. “In the end, they are taking money from retail investors, and that’s the money ultimately that’s being invested and funneled into these loans,” a former Guggenheim compliance attorney said on the episode, speaking anonymously. Dziedzic says similar headlines could hurt the whole industry. “If these things keep happening and they keep ending up in the front page of the paper, people are going to stop buying these products,” he says. “That’s bad for everybody, including the good actors.”

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SPECIAL REPORT THE TRUSTED RESOURCE FOR FINANCIAL ADVISORS

2026 This year’s Rising Stars are winning

CONTENTS

clients through plain-spoken advice,

Feature article ........................................................ 18

AI discipline, and hard-earned trust

InvestmentNews.com InvestmentNews.com

PAGE

Methodology .......................................................... 19 Rising Stars 2026 .................................................. 24

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SPECIAL REPORT

RISING STARS 2026

SIMPLICITY IS THE NEW SOPHISTICATION THE BEST young advisors in wealth management have a proprietary skill that’s enabling them to thrive, and it has nothing to do with picking stocks or foreseeing macro trends. Quite simply, they can take something genuinely complicated, understand what their clients want, and hand it back to them with nothing lost in translation. It’s a gamechanger, not a soft skill: it is how they turn a first meeting into a decade-long relationship. The investment world runs on jargon and acronyms that most professionals privately admit add nothing but distance, and the advisors on this year’s list have built their careers on refusing to hide behind them. Anyone can memorize a contribution limit or run a model portfolio. What separates this year’s InvestmentNews Rising Stars is the ability to turn complexity into something a client can hold onto and to do it consistently enough that trust stops being earned meeting by meeting and starts being assumed.

That skill has never mattered more. Wealth management is barreling toward a demographic cliff: more than a third of financial advisors plan to retire within the next 10 years, and 27 percent of those advisors have no formal succession plan in place, according to Cerulli Associates’ The Cerulli Edge – U.S. Advisor Edition, 3Q 2026. Every one of those retirements hands a book of client relationships to whoever can earn them fastest. At the same time, AI is doing to financial advice what it has done to other knowledge professions: commoditizing the parts that used to feel impressive. Anyone can ask a chatbot how a Roth conversion works. What a chatbot cannot do is sit across from a client, read the fear in a follow-up question, and answer it in a way that actually lands. Among the 2026 Rising Stars list, now in its third year, some are building technology platforms deliberately designed to disappear into the background, while some are betting their firm’s

KEY INSIGHTS

27%

of retiring advisors have no formal succession plan, even as retirements accelerate industry-wide, Cerulli Associates finds.

94%

of rookie advisors call mentoring important, though most say they don’t actually receive real career guidance from one.

50+

advisors nationwide now rely on the platform Rising Star Charles Heuring built from scratch as founder of IAMS Wealth Management.

$10B

is the assets under management target Envisage Wealth has set, and the firm is already ahead of schedule, says Rising Star and CIO Alexander Reed.

82%

of advisors already use AI in their practice, yet most say client trust still requires a human touch, Edward Jones research finds.

85%

of advisors have adopted AI tools, and many now say it saves them meaningful time each week, AssetMark reports. Sources: Cerulli Associates, Edward Jones / Morning Consult, AssetMark, and interviews conducted for this report.

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future on the idea that better tools make expertise more valuable, not less. Some are simply refusing to let a client leave a meeting confused. All of them are proof that in an industry about to change hands, the advisors who win are the ones who make the complicated feel simple and the unfamiliar feel safe.

Industry context: trust as the new differentiator

The wealth management industry’s succession problem is not abstract, and it is bigger than any one interview can capture. Andrew Blake, associate director, wealth management at Cerulli Associates, points to a structural gap: more than a third of advisors plan to retire within 10 years, while roughly a quarter of those have no formal succession plan. “It’s beneficial for advisors that do have a succession plan to share it with clients and make early introductions to those who will eventually run the practice,” he says. “The next generation of advisors must forge relationships with the next generation of clients to ensure a seamless transition that keeps the relationship in place.” The key to filling that gap is being able to speak to clients in a simple and engaging manner. According to The Cerulli Edge – U.S. Advisor Edition, 3Q 2026, roughly 35.3 percent of advisors, representing 40.1 percent of industry assets under advisement, expect to retire within the next decade, a wave the firm estimates will touch nearly $14.5 trillion in assets. Of those retiring advisors, 27 percent say they are unsure of their succession plans, representing roughly $4 trillion in assets without a clear plan for who takes over. The same research found that 73 percent of advisors cited the length of time required to learn the business as a major obstacle, and 67 percent said day-today training itself demands too much of a senior advisor’s time – exactly the kind of mentorship gap Blake describes. Lynn Chen-Zhang, CFP®, CPA, PFS, MBA, MS, CEO of Zhang Financial, frames the challenge less as a numbers problem and more as an inheritance problem. “This generational transition creates an extraordinary opportunity for younger advisors, but inheriting client relationships should never be viewed as automatic,” she says. “Clients need to develop confidence in the next generation well before a transition occurs.” Erin Botsford, founder and CEO of The Advisor Authority, frames the same succession problem in blunter terms. “Inheriting a book of business

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and keeping it are two different things,” she says. “Clients aren’t automatically going to transfer their trust from one generation to another. The younger advisor still has to demonstrate that he or she can lead the relationship, communicate with confidence, and bring meaningful value to the family.” Botsford argues that what actually separates a Rising Star from an advisor who has simply accumulated years in the business is never technical knowledge alone. “Technical competence is important,” she adds. “But technical competence alone rarely creates an extraordinary career.” All three experts converge on the same warning about AI: it can make advisors faster, but it cannot manufacture the trust that clients place in a person. “AI and digital tools can make advisors more efficient by accelerating research, improving data analysis, streamlining administrative work, and helping personalize client communication,” ChenZhang says. “However, technology does not replace an advisor’s fiduciary responsibility, professional judgment, or empathy.” Botsford makes a similar case from the technology side: “As technology makes information and analysis increasingly available to everyone, information itself becomes less of a differentiator. The advisor’s value shifts toward judgment, communication, trust, and the ability to help a client make good decisions.” Blake adds that mentorship, the traditional mechanism for passing on that judgment, is falling short of what young advisors need: 94 percent of rookie advisors and practice management professionals consider mentoring important, yet only 42 percent of rookies report receiving real career-growth guidance from a mentor. Independent survey data backs up that humantouch argument. A Morning Consult survey of 201 financial advisors conducted for Edward Jones and published in July 2026 found that 82 percent of advisors are already using AI in their practice, and 69 percent say it has had a positive effect on the industry. Yet 68 percent of those same advisors said building and maintaining long-term client trust still requires a human touch.

Charles Heuring Age: 35

Building the silent engine behind 50 advisors

Charles Heuring founded IAMS Wealth Management in Elkhorn, Nebraska, in 2016 with no clients, no brand recognition, and a handful of advisors willing to bet on him before the firm even had a name. A decade later, the firm, registered as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, supports more than 50 independent financial advisors nationwide, overseeing roughly $500 million in assets under advisement, with 10 of those original advisors marking their 10-year anniversary with the firm next year. He says, “It’s been hard to trust other people to kind of carry the torch for me, but it’s

InvestmentNews.com

been fun seeing them embrace that. I’m starting to see the benefits of scale.” What makes Heuring’s approach distinctive is what he has chosen not to build. Rather than positioning IAMS as a consumer-facing brand, he has deliberately kept the firm behind the scenes, letting each advisor’s own business identity lead the client relationship. “I might be a little different than other people because we’re more of a platform,” he says. “If you looked in our office, our advisors have 40 different branch office logos. There are not a lot of IAMS Wealth offices everywhere. We really empower their brand to own the client relationship, and we’re kind of the silent back-office engine.” That instinct extends to how he has handled growth. IAMS has fielded acquisition interest and approached other firms itself over the years, but Heuring has consistently walked away rather than compromise the culture he built from zero.“I’m really cautious about taking care of our culture, just making sure we don’t grow too fast or outpace ourselves,” he says.“There are ways to maybe cut a corner or earn an extra dollar or merge another firm, but I really just like what we have, and I’m first and foremost cautious of ruining that. I want to grow purposefully instead of growing for the sake of growing.” Heuring is candid that the role comes with a kind of isolation the recognition doesn’t fully account for. Running a platform built around other people’s businesses, he says, means there’s rarely anyone checking his own work, for better or worse. He also describes his day-to-day less like running a single firm and more like overseeing dozens of small businesses at once, treating the variation across his advisor base as a constant source of data rather than a headache to manage. “It can be lonely at the top,” Heuring says. “No one’s patting you on the back for making good decisions or coming down on you when it’s a bad decision. You live with that yourself. So, to have a little bit of recognition is really, really neat.”

In his own words Q: What do you feel you bring to the role that’s particularly strong?

A: I think, first and foremost, I try to genuinely

connect with people. I know that’s probably what a lot of people say, but I think we try to walk the walk, and that’s how I lead my team. We started from scratch, and a lot of our advisors actually had never done this before. So they put a lot of trust in me and the vision we were building. It comes down to earning their trust and earning their respect, and that just comes from doing the little things over time.

Q: What do you look for in the advisors and team members you bring on board?

A: I think, even more than anything else, it’s about

mindset and camaraderie. I think if they come in knowing they’re shoulder to shoulder with their teammates, we celebrate successes. We do most of our service through the phone, and a lot of our advisors tell me they can hear that over the phone when they’re talking to our team – they can just say, ‘Hey, I know you guys are working for me; we’re not just a number.’ We know everything about our customers – their spouses’ names, their kids’ names, their favorite sports teams, and where their summer vacation is.

METHODOLOGY Starting in May, InvestmentNews invited financial advice and wealth management professionals across the country to nominate their most exceptional young talent for the third annual Rising Stars list. Nominees had to be aged 40 or under (as of October 1, 2026) and be committed to a career in wealth management, with a clear passion for the industry. Nominees were asked about their current role, key achievements, and career goals, as well as the contributions they’ve made to shaping the industry. Recommendations from managers and senior industry professionals were also taken into account. The Rising Stars were determined by an independent panel of industry leaders composed of: • James Bogart, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Bogart Wealth • Katrina Dudley, Senior Vice President, Public Market Investments, Franklin Templeton • Lisette Cooper, Vice Chair, Fiduciary Trust International • Natalie Wolfsen, Chief Executive Officer, Orion Advisor Solutions • Shannon Spotswood, Chief Executive Officer, RFG Advisory

IN’s 2026 Rising Stars report is proudly supported by the California Alternative Investments Association and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors.

“I want to grow purposefully instead of growing for the sake of growing” CHARLES HEURING, IAMS WEALTH MANAGEMENT

Q: How is AI changing what you’re building? A: We’re actually developing our own technology

to blend a lot of our tools together into one tool – we’re calling it the IAMS Advisor Dashboard, still just one login to do everything. Most of our advisors are one-person teams, so their time is money. We want them not in the dashboard – we want them meeting with people. What I’m excited about is getting it at the institutional level, where we can all be working from the same data set. From a compliance standpoint, that’s a big asset too – actually owning that technology instead

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SPECIAL REPORT

RISING STARS 2026

HOW OLD ARE THIS YEAR’S RISING STARS? Age distribution, InvestmentNews Rising Stars 2026

Under 32

32 and older

42%

36%

39 winners

33 winners

“There are no absolutes when it comes to investing – it’s about probabilities, and they’re always changing. We try to be that behavioral coach when it comes to it” ALEXANDER REED, ENVISAGE WEALTH

16%

15 winners

6 winners

Ages 24–27

Ages 28–31

Ages 32–35

Ages 36–40

Source: InvestmentNews Rising Stars 2026 nomination data. Nearly 8 in 10 winners are 32 or older.

of supervising 40 offices that all use their own independent AI. That’s a little bit of a nightmare for our compliance team.

Q: What’s the biggest internal challenge you’re

Alexander Reed Age: 35

managing as the firm grows?

A: Growing and scaling and helping advisors grow,

but not turning our back on what got us to where we’re already at. Keeping that culture, that small family office feel, and that personal knowledge of our advisors – I want that to stay with us even if we double, triple, or quadruple in size over the next five years.

Q: Where do you see IAMS in 10 years? A: We’ve already outkicked our expectations, to

be honest. We just built out more of our office – we have room for about 25 employees now; we’ve got 12 so far. I have no plans of really slowing down. If I’m looking in 10 years, I hope we’re four or five times as big, and I hope we’re helping four or five times as many people. This recognition is even a nice kind of benchmark, affirming that we’re on the right track and just doubling down and knowing that if we keep doing what we’re doing, the sky is really the limit.

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Betting on expertise in the age of AI

As chief investment officer and a member of the executive leadership team at Envisage Wealth in Columbus, Ohio, Alexander Reed sets the firm’s investment strategy and oversees manager selection, asset allocation, and portfolio construction. Over the past year, he has led due diligence on the firm’s strategic merger to date, involving a $1.5 billion asset manager based in Calabasas, California, expanding Envisage’s presence in the ultra-high-net-worth market. The firm set a target of reaching $10 billion in assets under management by 2031 three to four years ago and, according to Reed, is tracking ahead of schedule. Strategic acquisitions and continued AI adoption have been identified as two key levers to help the firm achieve that goal. Reed’s central argument is that AI raises the bar for advisors rather than lowering it. Much of his

strategic focus over the past year, he said, has been helping his own team separate the mechanics of the job from the reason clients hire them in the first place. “How do we redefine our purpose and what we do as financial advisors vs. the task of asset allocation or of writing a financial plan?” he says. “Our purpose is to ask the right questions and turn insight into confident and reliable action. “But the purpose is to give confidence to our clients to meet their needs and hit their goals. That’s been a lot of my strategic role the last 12 months: helping people understand where AI will fit, where we need to reassess resources, and double down on other areas that make our team special.” Away from the numbers, Reed points to temperament as much as technical skill. Asked what he brings to the CIO role beyond investment expertise, he pointed to an even keel as much as passion for the work. He also described the job as something he never fully switches off from, treating markets and business strategy as close to a hobby as a profession, alongside cooking, travel, and family, with the team around him describing him as highly competitive and uncomfortable with complacency in a fast-changing industry. “You have to be passionate,” Reed says. “That helps take the highs and lows out of the job. Within investments, and especially as a CIO, you have to have a pretty even-keeled personality. You can’t get overzealous or excited in one market or the other. A lot of that has to do with just having a repeatable process, establishing perspective, always trying to find the devil’s advocate.”

In his own words Q: How is AI changing the value an advisor provides?

A: It’s already having a great improvement in my

productivity and the team’s, but the mindset I try to instill in the team is that better tools don’t replace expertise; they reward it. If you had Tiger Woods’ swing coach, his clubs, his balls, and his dietitian, would you be playing like Tiger Woods? No, there’s something different there about experience and

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expertise that gives you better insight. A lot of people can learn what to do when it comes to their finances – like contribute to your 401(k) or contribute to a Roth IRA – but knowing the task isn’t the same as understanding the purpose behind it.

WHO ARE THIS YEAR’S RISING STARS?

Q: You mentioned clients bringing more outside

information into conversations. What’s changed there? A: We really focus on trying to be as objective as possible and just give perspective to clients. Oftentimes it’s these echo chambers of noise, whether it be a podcast or YouTube channel that we get laser-focused on, and we just try to put down the walls and say, ‘Okay, here are the objective facts, here’s the perspective.’ There are no absolutes when it comes to investing – it’s about probabilities, and they’re always changing. We try to be that behavioral coach when it comes to it – that’s kind of the most important piece.

Q: What does the CIO role look like going forward, and where is the firm headed? A: I think doubling down on leveraging technology to deliver fast, relevant, objective data and insights to our clients is going to be more and more important – that’s going to be more and more of my focus, what moves the needle for clients in the future.

Matt Stephens Age: 39

Growing through acquisition and plain language As the president and senior wealth advisor at Willow Chute Financial in Benton, Louisiana, Matt Stephens is an Army reservist who deployed to Iraq in 2010. He personally spent years consulting other financial advisors before building his own practice, an experience that shaped both his investment approach and his communication style. The habit that defines his practice, he said, is refusing to talk to clients about their money the way the industry talks about it internally. “They don’t think that way,” Stephens says. “They think, ‘I need to be saving more, or I don’t know that I’ve saved enough,’ or there’s some other nonquantifiable, nonnumerical factor that people are thinking about their problems in their own head. If you talk to people about their problems in numerical terms, they don’t get it. That’s not a context where we talk about problems in numerical values. We talk about them and how they feel and how they impact us. And that’s how clients need to hear results as well.” Stephens runs two distinct equity models for clients: a conservative portfolio built around large, dividend-paying companies with strong market share and a more aggressive model weighted toward technology and data-driven firms. For seven-figure accounts, he often blends the two. He manages individual stock positions directly rather

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34.3

average age

2015

average year started

Source: InvestmentNews Rising Stars 2026 nomination data

than through mutual funds or ETFs, a choice he says keeps portfolios lean enough to explain in the 30-second conversations that define his approach with clients. He developed that skill during his years in consulting, where he learned to distill information for other advisors down to only what was essential, targeting explanations using a client’s reaction as a real-time signal of whether the message landed. Beneath the confident, plain-spoken delivery, Stephens is candid about the weight of the job itself. He recently hired an assistant who, within her first weeks, arrived at the same realization he has quietly carried for years: that the numbers on a screen represent someone’s entire life savings. Rather than dwell on that pressure, he manages it structurally, running every recommendation past his team for a second opinion and through planning software before it ever reaches a client, so that by the time he delivers advice, it has already been stress-tested. “We’re dealing with people’s life savings, like everything they’ve accumulated in their lifetime,” Stephens says. “Usually, we’re managing all of it. So yeah, it is some pressure. I try not to think about it in those terms just because I think it would probably scare me to death sometimes. I just try to do a good job for folks who are giving me that level of trust.”

In his own words Q: What do you think is your biggest strength as

an advisor? A: When people understand what you’re telling them and they get it, it gives them confidence that you know what you’re doing. Being a younger person in the industry, that’s been important for people who have worked with previous financial advisors for potentially decades but then choose to work with me. It’s because they might have worked with that advisor for a long period of time and never really understood what this piece meant

“I don’t want to put my reputation on AI” MATT STEPHENS, WILLOW CHUTE FINANCIAL

or how it connected to another piece. In them understanding it, they have all the confidence that I grasp it and that I’ve got it under control.

Q: You’ve grown partly by acquiring retiring advisors’ books of business. What makes that work? A: If you have the buy-in and the warm introduction from the outgoing advisor, that is so much better than someone coming off the street, meeting you for the first time, trying to build that trust. That has its place, and that needs to happen. But getting clients by acquisition, especially if it’s a good fit and everybody is on board with what’s happening – for me, it was two aging advisors who wanted to retire pretty rapidly. One was relocating and one was taking care of an ailing wife. Q: How do you use AI in your practice? A: So [Claude] gave me last year’s IRS limit. I

asked it, ‘Hey, why did you give me the 2025 limit, not the 2026 limit?’ It said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re right, I should have given you the 2026 limit.’ Right there, it told me I can’t use it for the details. I can use it for the concepts, and AI will catch up – it’ll get there; it may already be there, and that happened about a year ago. I think AI has got a lot to offer, especially in my industry, but I’m hesitant to give it a lot of trust.

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SPECIAL REPORT

RISING STARS 2026

WHAT RISING STARS VALUE MOST

Christian Richards III Age: 38

Average importance rating, InvestmentNews Rising Stars 2026

Turning athletic discipline into financial literacy

Rated essential Hard work

4.99

Emotional intelligence

4.90

Rated less critical Specific management training

3.24

Legal knowledge

3.22

Long career at the same employer

2.96

A relevant degree

2.89

Christian Richards III played football from age five through a Division 1 scholarship at the University of Michigan before finishing his college career at Stony Brook and signing in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks. That path, not a traditional finance career track, shaped how he built Richards, Lathrop & Associates: a firm explicitly designed to serve the clients other advisors overlook. Richards and co-founder Michael Lathrop both trained at small boutique firms managing roughly $1 billion in assets, where the prevailing ethos was client-first service. They left when they watched that model get squeezed out. Richards traces the firm’s founding mission to a single moment early in his football career. At a Seattle Seahawks rookie meeting, top brokerage firms sat down with the team’s draft picks and largely ignored the players like him. That conviction has become the firm’s defining policy, as Richards, Lathrop & Associates doesn’t have account minimums. Richards traces that policy directly back to where he’s from. He grew up in Pacoima, a small enclave in North Los Angeles County, where, by his own estimate, fewer than one percent of people had more than $5,000 to invest. “My family and friends would not be ideal clients for the average wealth management firm and certainly not from the wealth management firms that I came from,” he says. Richards, Lathrop & Associates’ growth has come fast; it passed $115 million in assets under management within its first seven months, but Richards treats scale as secondary to the standard of service he and Lathrop set out to deliver. “We intend to grow as large as we can, as long as we can keep those core tenets in place,” he says. “And once we get to a place where we feel that we’re not providing that

“We had clients that we have $5,000 accounts for and clients with $100 million, and they all get the same level of service” CHRISTIAN RICHARDS III, RICHARDS, LATHROP & ASSOCIATES

Source: InvestmentNews Rising Stars 2026 nomination data. Winners rated each trait’s importance to becoming a leader in wealth management.

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same level of service that we intended when Michael and I started, then we’ll stop. I think we’re very well compensated in this industry, and so for us it’s not about more; it’s about doing what we set out to do in the right way.”

In his own words Q: How did your athletic background shape your approach to wealth management?

A: As a financial counselor, our clients look

to us for leadership in all things financial and making sure that we put a plan together, which is something that I learned as an athlete over the years. You don’t go into a game with hopes to win and be prosperous without a game plan. And so obviously there’s a direct analog there between my career in athletics and my career as a wealth manager. And then also, teamwork – I’m a firm believer in that. There have been a lot of things that I’ve been able to accomplish in my life, and none of them I’ve accomplished by myself.

Q: What’s the biggest fear you hear from clients today?

A: It permeates throughout socioeconomic status.

Those things are always central; the fear is, am I going to outlive my assets? Specifically, today, primarily what I’m hearing is a fear of what this transition into an almost exclusively technologydriven, AI-driven economy and global economy will mean, not just for most of my clients, who tend to fall in the 45–60 age demographic. They’re worried about the world that their kids and grandkids will inhabit and what industries will be able to provide them an income that is sustainable for them.

Q: What sets your firm apart when it comes to actually growing client wealth?

A: It’s where we create the most value; we have a

high-level tax strategy and education that allows us to help clients keep more of their money in their pocket, which inevitably leads to more growth as you save and invest and are diligent in those areas over time.

Industry outlook

The next 12–24 months will test how well this generation of advisors can convert individual recognition into institutional continuity. Cerulli’s data suggests the retirement wave is not a distant risk: with more than a third of advisors planning to exit within a decade, nearly $14.5 trillion in assets in motion, and only a minority of those retiring advisors with a formal transition plan, firms that fail to build deliberate succession pathways risk losing client relationships along with their retiring advisors. AI adoption will likely accelerate on both sides of that transition, and it is already further along than headlines suggest: separate research from AssetMark, published in September 2026, found that 85 percent of advisors have adopted some form of AI-integrated solution, with more than half saving at least four hours a week as a result. Rising Stars like Reed are betting that AI raises the value of human judgement rather than replacing it, while Stephens’ experience with an outdated contribution limit illustrates why advisors are treating AI as a research accelerant rather than a source of client-facing fact. Heuring’s approach – building proprietary technology at the institutional level rather than leaving 40 offices to adopt AI independently – points to where complianceconscious firms are likely headed next: centralized, auditable AI tools rather than a patchwork of individual advisor experimentation.

The common thread

What distinguishes this year’s Rising Stars is not

INSIGHTS As part of our editorial process, InvestmentNews’ researchers interviewed the subject matter experts below for their independent analysis of this report and its findings. Andrew Blake Associate Director, Wealth Management Cerulli Associates

Erin Botsford Founder and Chief Executive Officer The Advisor Authority

Lynn Chen-Zhang, CFP®, CPA, PFS, MBA, MS Chief Executive Officer Zhang Financial

a single formula for growth. Heuring built trust by staying out of the spotlight and empowering advisors to own their own brand. Reed built it by arguing that expertise, not technology, is what actually moves clients forward. Stephens built it by acquiring the trust that retiring advisors had already earned and making sure clients could understand, in 30 seconds or less, exactly what he was doing with their money. Across all three approaches, the throughline is the same: technical skill earns a seat at the table, but trust, deliberately and patiently built, is what keeps a client relationship intact through a generational handoff.

PANEL OF JUDGES

James Bogart Founder and Chief Executive Officer Bogart Wealth

InvestmentNews.com

Katrina Dudley Senior Vice President, Public Market Investments Franklin Templeton

Lisette Cooper Vice Chair Fiduciary Trust International

Natalie Wolfsen Chief Executive Officer Orion

Shannon Spotswood Chief Executive Officer RFG Advisory

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SPECIAL REPORT

RISING STARS 2026

RISING STARS 2026 Cade DeNazario Akers Senior Product Manager Orion

Andrew Kulha Partner and Director of Estate Strategy Mission Wealth

Phone: 402 496 3513 Email: success@orion.com Website: orion.com

Phone: 713 597 5998 Email: akulha@missionwealth.com Website: missionwealth.com

Christian Richards III President and Senior Wealth Advisor Richards, Lathrop & Associates

Anna Reade Vice President, Brand and Communications Wealth.com

Phone: 818 392 4164 Email: chris@richardslathrop.com Website: richardslathrop.com

Phone: 855 456 0333 Email: anna.reade@wealth.com Website: wealth.com

Alexander Reed Chief Investment Officer Envisage Wealth

Brett Long Partner TM Advisors

Phone: 614 310 0501 Email: alexander.j.reed@ampf.com Website: envisagewealth.com

Phone: 248 688 9399 Email: brett@tmadvisors.com Website: tmadvisors.com

Chad Waters Owner Trifecta Wealth Management

Easton Price Financial Planner Prosperity Wealth Planning

Phone: 858 703 6033 Email: chad.waters@trifectawm.com Website: trifectawm.com

Phone: 949 203 9849 Email: easton@prosperitywealthplanning.com Website: prosperitywealthplanning.com

Charles Heuring President and Chief Executive Officer IAMS Wealth Management Phone: 888 255 7670 Email: charles@iamswm.com Website: iamswealthmanagement.com Derek Platt Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor, and Certified Financial Planner Wealth Enhancement

Emma Boston Senior Vice President, Succession and Capital Raymond James Website: raymondjames.com

Josh Pierce President JH Pierce Wealth Management

Phone: 281 717 2143 Email: dplatt@wealthenhancement.com Website: wealthenhancement.com

Phone: 307 257 8621 Website: jhpierce.com

Kevin R. Clark Financial Advisor, Ameriprise Financial Services Owner, Arch City Tax Services

Kristen Civin Assistant Vice President, Practice Management Cambridge Investment Research, Inc.

Phone: 614 288 3262 Email: kevin.r.clark@ampf.com and kevin@archcitytax.com Website: ameripriseadvisors.com/kevin.r.clark and archcitytax.com

Phone: 800 777 6080 Email: kristen.civin@cir2.com Website: joincambridge.com

Matt Stephens President and Senior Wealth Advisor Willow Chute Financial

Lindsey Haefemeyer Partner, Chartered Financial Consultant, and Registered Principal Klinkhammer Financial

Phone: 318 327 2960 Email: matt@willowchutefinancial.com Website: willowchutefinancial.com

Phone: 507 664 9088 Email: info@klinkhammerfinancial.com Website: klinkhammerfinancial.com

Nathan Jendusa Director, Relationship Development The BREAKTHRU Multi-Family Office

Patrick L. Carney, CFP®, CIMA®, AIF® Vice President, Director of Personal Wealth Management Foresight Capital Management Advisors, Inc.

Phone: 414 837 6206 Email: nathanj@realbreakthru.com Website: breakthrufamily.com

Phone: 877 429 4690 Email: Pcarney@fcmadvisors.net Website: fcmadvisors.net

Shea Rush Managing Director and Partner Rothschild Wealth Partners

Rodrigo Lopez Partner and Director of Due Diligence Sendero Wealth Management

Phone: 312 983 8948 Email: srush@rothschildwealth.com Website: rothschildwealth.com

Phone: 210 805 0171 Email: sendero@sendero.com Website: sendero.com

Andrew Fincher, CFP®, CEPA®, AIF® Financial Advisor VLP Financial Advisors

Travis Dragan Senior Wealth Advisor Mission Wealth

Phone: 703 356 4360 Email: afincher@vlpfa.com Website: vlpfa.com

Phone: 440 462 6655 Email: tdragan@missionwealth.com Website: missionwealth.com

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RISING STARS 2026 Andrew Schaetzke Managing Director – Strategy and Senior Advisor SJS Investment Services Austin Storck Financial Advisor Borza Storck Wealth Management of Raymond James Brad Baxter Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor Wealth Enhancement Brook Stevenson Associate Wealth Advisor Adams Wealth Advisors Bryan Stretton Vice President Wealthspire Cameron Beginin Certified Financial Planner SGH Wealth Management Cierra Walding Private Wealth Advisor Ameriprise Financial Courtney Huge Financial Advisor Wealth Enhancement David Tassone Principal Solidi Wealth Advisors Devon Gluck Partner and Financial Planner Maller Wealth Advisors Dillon Benz Assistant Vice President and Director, Consulting and Education RBC Clearing & Custody Dominic Monk Financial Advisor Baird Dustin Blodgett Financial Planner, Founder, and Chief Executive Officer Insight Capital Management Edison Byzyka Chief Investment Officer Credent Wealth Management

Geoff Hunter Complex Manager Raymond James

Justin Rodriguez Advisor and Shareholder TCI Wealth Advisors

Morgan Newman Director – Investments Oppenheimer & Co

Gideon Drucker President and Chief Executive Officer Drucker Wealth

Kelli Burger Wealth Management Advisor and Partner Weatherly Asset Management

Nicholas Sterling Associate Director, Investments Oppenheimer & Co

Gregory Fortier Financial Advisor Centinel Financial Group Hannah Varnado Owner/Financial Advisor Wood Opal Financial Advisors Ian Curtiss Chief Wealth Strategist and Wealth Manager Coldstream Imade Iyamu Founder Arusha Wealth James McDaniel Managing Director U.S. Capital Wealth Jared Wurtzel Senior Vice President – Wealth Management Raymond James Jeffrey Meyers, Jr. Senior Director – Private Markets ArchBridge Family Office Jess Wright Senior Financial Advisor/Partner Summit Global Private Wealth Jimmy Way Senior Vice President and Head of Internal Sales Clark Capital Management Group Johan Vako Vice President Wall Street Alliance Group Joseph Evans Financial Advisor Wealth Enhancement Josh Szyman Managing Partner Cambium Wealth Partners

Kelsey Costantini Financial Advisor and Senior Director – Investments Oppenheimer & Co Kevin Tobiassen Senior Director, Product Management Canoe Intelligence Laura White Senior Vice President, IA Compliance Osaic Lauren Rowland Principal RZH Advisors Leslie Norman Chief Technology Officer Dynasty Financial Partners Luke Anderson Senior Vice President and Wealth Advisor SteelPeak Wealth Malique Micenheimer Co-Founder and Wealth Advisor WIN Private Wealth Mario Riccadonna Wealth Advisor Carson Wealth Marissa Cadiz Financial Advisor Ameriprise Financial Mark Gravina Vice President and Wealth Manager Monadnock Private Wealth Matt Sampson Wealth Manager Coldstream Michael Randall Owner and Financial Planner Oak Summit Wealth Management

Nick Safi Director of Practice Management/ Financial Advisor Affiliated Advisors Patrick Mundlin Market Vice President 49 Financial R.J. Cunningham Senior Advisor–Partner Summit Global Private Wealth Rebecca McKenzie Vice President, Product Management Vestmark Ryan Halvorson Financial Advisor and Shareholder TCI Wealth Advisors Scott Busch Managing Partner Gettings Busch Wealth Management Scott Gaynor Senior Wealth Advisor Navalign Wealth Partners Shiraz Zaidi Partner and Financial Advisor Coastline Wealth Management Tessa Steinemann Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer True Alpha Wealth Management Tiffany Rosetti Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor Wealth Enhancement Tyler Rosser Managing Director Oxford Financial Group Tyler Sterk Senior Wealth Advisor Kayne Anderson Rudnick Will Arthur Financial Advisor Wealth Enhancement

Julian Grubbs Financial Planner Heritage Financial Consultants

Michael Rashtian Vice President and Wealth Advisor SteelPeak Wealth

Elizabeth Paal Goss Financial Planner Heritage Financial Consultants

Justin Brownlee Founder Brownlee Wealth Management

Michael Slenes Financial Advisor Allworth Financial

Emily Green Head of Wealth Management Ellevest

Justin Iskander Wealth Advisor and Investment Analyst SteelPeak Wealth

Mitch Greene Partner and Senior Wealth Advisor Adams Wealth Advisors

Zach Bainter Managing Partner Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management

Eric Williams Financial Advisor and Director Raymond James

Justin McCormick Senior Wealth Manager Olistico Wealth

Mitch Kennedy Senior Wealth Advisor Mariner

Zach Nelson Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor Wealth Enhancement

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Yesenia Realejo Director of Financial Planning and Senior Wealth Advisor Tobias Financial Advisors

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NewsAnalysis

CAN ALTRUIST REALLY THREATEN SCHWAB? The RIA custody market was thrown for a loop when Vanguard said it was buying fintech platform Altruist for reportedly close to $4 billion BY BRUCE KELLY

he Charles Schwab Corp. is the long-reigning largest service provider and custodian to registered investment advisors, with reportedly between $5 trillion and $6 trillion in assets from 17,000 RIA firms and financial advisors. Adding to its heft and reputation as industry leader, Schwab just a few years ago pulled off a corporate coup: the acquisition of a former main competitor, TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., for $26 billion in stock.

share prices of competitors, including Schwab, sharply lower. “Altruist is not much of a threat to Schwab, but Vanguard is,” said Brad Bueermann, CEO and founder of FP Transitions, a leading consultancy for RIAs, on a recent episode of the InvestmentNews Podcast. “Given the size and scale, that’s interesting. We’re watching how this affects advisors.” “Vanguard was likely thinking not just about Altruist but thinking Hazel, the AI that Altruist

“Altruist remains a small player with limited capabilities, and [Schwab] has seen an acceleration in RIA flows over [the last year]” STEVEN CHUBAK, WOLFE RESEARCH The deal only added to Schwab’s stature and reach. But dominance can be fleeting on Wall Street. And Schwab and the rest of the RIA custody market were thrown into a shock in August when the Vanguard Group, the global leader in fund management, said it was buying fintech platform and Schwab competitor Altruist for reportedly close to $4 billion. Altruist last year launched Hazel, an AI platform designed for financial advisors. Over the winter, news of Altruist’s AI tax-planning tool sent the

26 | IN 30.05

pioneered,” Bueermann said. “That was ahead of the curve, by months, in terms of what we’ve seen when it comes to the explosion of AI connectors in the industry.” “Vanguard is effectively coming over to the side of independent advisors,” he added. “I think that’s a huge move.” A spokesperson for Vanguard did not comment for this story. As InvestmentNews noted in August, the Vanguard purchase of Altruist marks one of the most significant consolidations in advisor

technology this year, bringing together the country’s largest mutual fund manager with a firm that has spent the past several years working to modernize the RIA custody business. Founded in 2018, Altruist is being pitched to RIAs and their potential clients as the go-to technology savvy custodian right now. “Many investors in Vanguard funds choose to work with financial advisors, and far more people could benefit from access to financial advice than the industry can serve today,” said Salim Ramji, Vanguard CEO, in a statement announcing the deal. “Technology can help close that gap by enabling advisors to serve more people and serve them better, while preserving the human judgement and relationships at the center of good financial advice.” With its top-shelf technology, will Altruist, now backed by Vanguard, threaten Schwab’s leadership in the RIA marketplace? Financial advisors and industry executives have reflected on this since the deal’s announcement.

InvestmentNews.com

ALTRUIST AND SMALLER RIAS

Altruist ranked fifth among RIA custodians that work with advisors that manage less than $250M in client assets Source: AdvizorPro.com

“Vanguard is effectively coming over to the side of independent advisors. I think that’s a huge move” BRAD BUEERMANN, FP TRANSITIONS After all, Altruist earlier this year launched a corporate RIA structure designed to ease the path for so-called breakaway advisors, or brokers leaving wirehouses, to work as more highly paid independent RIAs. And some advisors who use Schwab to custody client assets have privately grumbled at times about service to advisors left waiting on the phone to call centers with questions about clients’ accounts. One Wall Street analyst in September batted aside any concerns Vanguard’s Altruist purchase might hold for Schwab. “The Altruist/Vanguard deal not a meaningful threat,” wrote Steven Chubak, managing director of Wolfe Research and a leading brokerage analyst, in a research note.

InvestmentNews.com

He had earlier met with senior Schwab management to inform his assessment and said he was maintaining his “bullish” outlook on the company. A spokesperson for Schwab said Chubak’s comments were consistent with the discussion in his meeting with the company’s senior management but declined to comment further. “Altruist remains a small player with limited capabilities, and [Schwab] has seen an acceleration in RIA flows over [the last year],” Chubak noted. “We do not believe this deal meaningfully alters the competitive landscape.” Pump the brakes on that way of thinking, other industry executives responded.

Can the RIA custody market afford to ignore Altruist’s technology or the role of Vanguard, which wants to expand into the financial advice marketplace? “When it comes to RIAs, it’s an arms race on the technology front,” said Peter Nesvold, managing partner of his eponymous firm Nesvold Capital. “The RIA custodian business in five years won’t look like what it is today.” “The one-stop shopping for technology solutions for advisors is where Altruist adds value,” Nesvold added. Altruist clearly has its supporters and will likely soon have a larger market share in the RIA custody industry. AdvizorPro.com called Altruist a “standout” among Schwab’s competitors as a technologyfocused custodian. AdvizorPro is an online data and research hub for RIAs and advisors. “Altruist has experienced remarkable growth over the past few years, emerging as a top choice for many new RIAs seeking a custodian partner,” wrote AdvizorPro.com in its annual analysis of custodians, months before Vanguard said it was buying Altruist. “Its popularity surge is a testament to the fact that new RIAs value innovative solutions and exceptional service, making Altruist an attractive option for forward-thinking RIAs.”

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Column Funding for asset distribution continues to swamp SaaS solutions New technology gets a lot of attention, but the investment dollars available for those providers are dwarfed by those that go into alternative investment distribution

lternative investments have gotten a lot of attention for their growth in recent years, yet they still remain a relatively small part of the overall investment landscape.

ADVISORTECH

BEN HENRY-MORELAND AND MICHAEL KITCES For example, there is around $20 trillion invested in alternative assets like private equity and debt, hedge funds, and real estate, but that’s a relative drop in the bucket compared to the estimated $318 trillion in combined global public equity and fixed income outstanding. Which roughly aligns to the estimated 3 percent average allocation to alternative investments by RIAs. Although many alternatives managers and platforms have pushed for higher adoption, various factors – from higher fees and complexity to liquidity concerns to the difficulty of due diligence on many disparate alternatives managers – have made advisors wary of allocating a substantial amount of their clients’ assets to alternatives, such that when they do include alternatives they don’t tend to exceed 10 to 15 percent of the client’s portfolio. But even though the average advisor doesn’t allocate a large amount to alternatives, those numbers add up when applied to the entire RIA landscape. With RIAs managing around $13.8 trillion of assets for individual investors, an average 3 percent allocation still equates to around $414 billion allocated to alternative investments. And assuming those investments charge around 2 percent per year in fees, that equates to around an $8 billion annual revenue opportunity for alternative investment managers solely from RIAs and their clients. And because alternatives are so operationally distinct from traditional investments, they have a whole ecosystem of technology and services to make them possible for advisory firms to implement.

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They don’t have public data listed on sites like Morningstar, so there are providers like Canoe, Alkymi, and Altidar to do research and due diligence. They don’t trade on traditional broker-dealer platforms, so alternatives marketplaces like CAIS and iCapital connect advisors and their clients with alternative investment options. They don’t feed into standard reporting software, so tools like Arch exist to pull in the data to feed into other tools. And the opportunity associated with all of these tools tracks along with the alternatives market as a whole. Which is why we’ve recently seen a number of strikingly large investments into alternatives-related platforms over recent months. In July, the alternatives marketplace CAIS raised $170 million in Series D funding at a $2 billion valuation, the data and reporting provider Arch raised $52 million in Series B funding, and the alternatives data and research provider Canoe was acquired by Bloomberg for what was reportedly close to $1 billion. All of which came just about one year after iCapital’s own whopping $820 million capital raise. In other words, at least $2 billion of investment dollars have flowed into the alternatives space in the last year alone – not into the alternative funds themselves, but just the platforms that help to distribute and support them. What’s striking about these numbers beyond their sheer size is how vast they are compared to the investments flowing into other advisor technology. For example, in the AI notetaker space, which has been one of the hottest categories in the advisor technology space, Jump has raised $104.6 million since the start of 2025, while Zocks has raised an additional $58.8 million, and Nevis has raised $35M. In other words, since the start of 2025, the most sought-after category in advisor technology attracted just under $200 million of investment – which was no more than 10 percent of the amount that went into alternative investment technology over that same time.

The difference between those relative investment levels speaks to the fundamental difference between revenue models that are based on flat fees versus those that come from basis points. On the advisory firm side, there’s a reason why the vast majority of advisory firms continue to bill based on AUM even as they base their value proposition more on planning and advice than on asset management: Basis points tend to be far more lucrative, as shown by Kitces Research on Advisor Productivity showing that AUM advisors charge two to three times the annual fees of flat-fee advisors. In the world of vendors serving advisors, the divide is clear from who buys booths at industry conventions: When it costs $10k or more for a booth, a technology company selling $75/month SaaS subscriptions will need to sell 12 new licenses to make up for the cost on an annual basis. Whereas an asset manager or SMA provider charging 50bps can make up their cost if they can get a single advisor to allocate $2 million of client money to them. Hence the exhibit halls of advisory conventions tend to be dominated by asset managers and other companies that can charge via basis points. And so venture capital investors likewise see a vast difference between the opportunities for an alternatives platform charging basis points and SaaS companies charging flat subscription fees. If a software company were to somehow sell a $100/month license to 100 percent of the estimated 300,000 financial advisors in the US, that would “only” equate to $360 million in annual revenue – which is only 4.5 percent of the $8+ billion flowing from alternative investments. Hence, even though advisors might only allocate around 3 percent of client assets to alternatives, compared to more than 40 percent of advisors using meeting notetakers, according to 2025 Kitces Research on Advisor Technology, with the adoption rate having surely increased since then – alternativesrelated technology receives around

10 times the investment of even the hottest SaaS category. Which is ultimately just a reminder that when it comes to where dollars flow in the financial industry at large, there’s the dollars that participate in asset management and/or distribution, and then there’s everything else. Which is why even though new technology might get a lot of attention and high adoption growth, the investment dollars available for those providers are swamped by those that go into asset distribution. This article first appeared on the Nerd’s Eye View at Kitces.com at https://kitc.es/ advisortech-sep2026, and has been reprinted here with permission. Ben Henry-Moreland is a senior financial planning nerd at Kitces.com, where he specializes in writing and speaking on financial planning topics including tax, practice management, and technology. He also co-authors the monthly Kitces #AdvisorTech column. Drawing from his experience as a financial planner and a solo advisory firm owner, Ben is passionate about fulfilling the site’s mission of making financial advicers better and more successful. Michael Kitces is head of planning strategy at Focus Partners Wealth, which provides an evidence-based approach to private wealth management for near- and current retirees, and Focus Partners Advisor Solutions, a turnkey wealth management services provider supporting thousands of independent financial advisors through the scaling phase of growth. In addition, he is a co-founder of the XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, fpPathfinder, and New Planner Recruiting, the former practitioner editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, the host of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, and the publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website Kitces.com, dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. In 2010, Michael was recognized with one of the FPA’s “Heart of Financial Planning” awards for his dedication and work in advancing the profession.

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THE TRUSTED RESOURCE FOR FINANCIAL ADVISORS

LEADING RIAs – EAST

2026 The region’s standout firms are building integrated, relationship-first practices shaped by the communities they serve

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CONTENTS

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Introduction ........................................................... 30 Leading RIAs – East 2026: Connecticut, ............. 31 Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

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LEADING RIAs – EAST 2026

EASTERN RIAS PUT THE PLAN BEFORE THE PORTFOLIO ACROSS THE EAST, leading registered investment advisors (RIAs) are growing by broadening the scope of their advice rather than chasing the latest investment trends. This report looks at firms across the 11 states that make up the East. Each is building a practice around the entirety of a client’s financial life while being shaped by the economic story of its region. At Capital A Management, LLC, which has offices in Pennsylvania and Ohio, director of growth and strategic execution Lauren Perrotta says the firm’s Western Pennsylvania roots have shaped its character. “There is a strong sense of community here, and people value relationships, trust, and knowing that the people helping them with their finances truly understand them and their families,” she says. The region’s large population of retirees and near-retirees aligns well with the firm’s focus. In

Capital A Wealth Management, LLC Phone: 724 658 4211 Email: info@ca-wm.com Website: capitalainvestments.com

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2025, 21 percent of Pennsylvanians were aged 65 or older, and the state’s 65-plus population grew by 13 percent between 2020 and 2025, according to the Pennsylvania State Data Center. Perrotta notes that these clients face decisions that extend far beyond investments, from income and taxes to healthcare and legacy planning. “We don’t believe financial planning should happen in silos,” Perrotta says. “Everything is connected.” Capital A has built its model around five areas: income, investments, taxes, healthcare, and legacy planning. It has brought tax planning and preparation, along with Medicare planning, in-house so advisors can see more of each client’s financial picture. On the investment side, the firm emphasizes tax-efficient strategies such as tax-loss harvesting, direct indexing where appropriate, Roth conversion planning, and asset location.

“We believe investments should serve the financial plan – not the other way around” LAUREN PERROTTA, CAPITAL A MANAGEMENT, LLC

Founded in New Castle, PA, in 1990, Capital A Wealth Management, LLC has grown from a small, family-owned financial business into a rapidly expanding regional wealth management firm. Since 2020, it has approximately doubled the number of client households it serves, nearly tripled its team, and grown from approximately $150 million to approximately $1 billion in assets while expanding its presence to Cranberry Township, Bridgeville, and Canfield, OH. Through its comprehensive approach to retirement planning, Capital A helps individuals and families navigate the many aspects of their financial lives, including income, investments, taxes, healthcare, and legacy planning. As the firm continues to grow, its focus remains rooted in the values that have shaped it from the beginning: putting clients first, building lasting relationships, and delivering an exceptional experience. With a growing team and family-driven culture, it is committed to helping clients confidently plan for and live through retirement.

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LEADING RIAs IN THE EASTERN UNITED STATES NEW YORK South Street Advisors, LLC Cross Border Wealth Cullen Capital Management, LLC Francis Financial Quantinno Capital Management LP

ROCHESTER Prentice Wealth Management AMHERST High Falls Advisors, Inc. Howe & Rusling, Inc.

West Branch Capital, LLC

Novem Group Whitney & Company

McCollum Christoferson Group, LLC Quabbin Advisors, LLC

WEBSTER Bright Futures Wealth Management, LLC

Sovereign Asset Management

WARWICK

Capstone Investment Financial Group, LLC

Financial Independence, LLC

MDT Financial Advisors, LLC

Mystic Asset Management The Retirement Planning Company of New England, Inc.

GREENWICH Colter Lewis Investment Partners, LLC Greenwich Wealth Management, LLC Night Owl Capital Management, LLC The Dowling Group Wealth Management

CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP EAST HANOVER Capital A Wealth Management, LLC

Access Wealth Upright Financial Corp

Hoffman Capital Advisors, LLC

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LEADING RIAs – EAST 2026

“The investment industry likes to sell the sizzle. We’re more interested in whether the bacon actually feeds somebody” WILLIAM J. PRENTICE II, PRENTICE WEALTH MANAGEMENT

Prentice Wealth Management Phone: 585 218 0001 Email: admin@prenticewealth.com Website: prenticewealth.com

West Branch Capital, LLC Phone: 833 888 0534 Email: info@westbranchcapital.com Website: westbranchcapital.com

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Planning through transition

In Rochester, NY, William J. Prentice II, managing partner of Prentice Wealth Management, built his firm against a backdrop of economic change. Prentice says the region’s corporate and industrial employment base has changed considerably over the years, leaving many residents facing downsizing, career changes, and early retirement decisions. “Our job was often to help someone take what felt like a negative near-term event and put it into the context of a much longer financial life,” he says. That history shaped the firm’s client base in two ways. Clients who relocated, or whose children did, pushed the firm to plan across different states and tax jurisdictions. Meanwhile, workers who became consultants, business owners, and real estate investors made entrepreneurs a core part of the firm’s clientele.

Prentice credits the past year’s success to work ethic. “I’ve always believed there will be someone smarter, faster, or with access to better technology, but allowing someone to outwork you is a choice,” he says. He describes the firm’s goal as delivering the breadth and personal involvement of a familyoffice relationship to a broader group of families. His investment approach rests on Modern Portfolio Theory, diversification, and appropriate risk allocation. It is deliberately unflashy.

Building for what comes next

Both winners are looking to expand what their firms offer clients while keeping the human relationship at the center. “The future of Capital A is about impact,” Perrotta says. The firm’s ambition goes beyond managing money. “We want to become the place

Prentice Wealth Management (PWM) was established in 2008 during one of the most turbulent financial periods in modern history. From its beginnings as a small firm with two professionals and $25 million in assets under management, PWM has grown into a thriving hybrid registered investment advisor with 12 associates managing and supporting over $627 million in client assets. Over the past three years, PWM has grown its footprint by acquiring and renovating a larger headquarters in Rochester, NY, while supporting regional offices near Boston, MA, and suburban Charlotte, NC. With a client retention rate of over 99 percent, the firm proudly serves clients across 36 states. The culture at PWM is grounded in the fiduciary standard, emphasizing client-first values, continuous improvement, and collaboration since its inception. In 2014, the firm expanded its reach by launching an affiliate model to support like-minded financial professionals with portfolio management solutions, financial planning support, and practice management resources. In 2017, it introduced tax preparation services to offer clients a more convenient and cost-effective solution. Beyond serving its clients, PWM encourages continuous professional development among its team and strives to be a positive force in the community. Together, these commitments define the firm’s unique culture.

West Branch Capital, LLC (WBC) is an independent, minority-owned, fee-only SEC-registered investment adviser founded by Ayaz Mahmud in 2004. As a fiduciary, it provides advice in its clients’ best interests and discloses conflicts of interest. WBC invests on behalf of clients without third-party or corporate employer incentives, and its investments are not commission-based. In keeping with its culture, it does not sell products. Instead, clients retain the firm as part of their team of legal and financial professionals. If needed, it can also help build that team. WBC professionals have decades of experience advising on direct equity and fixed-income investments and concentrated equity holdings. The firm goes beyond acting solely as an asset allocator. Its financial planning services encompass tax and estate planning strategies, college savings, charitable giving, retirement, real estate financing, and other financial challenges clients may face. Its customized financial plan serves as a multi-decade roadmap that is updated as clients’ needs evolve. WBC’s clients include retirees, soon-to-be retirees, professors, doctors, artists, entrepreneurs, executives, and multigenerational families. The firm understands the high degree of trust its clients place in it and works tirelessly to maintain that trust.

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our clients can turn whenever they face an important financial decision,” she adds. Having already integrated investment management, retirement income planning, tax planning and preparation, healthcare and Medicare planning, and legacy planning, Capital A wants to make those services even more connected while continuing to add capabilities that make clients’ financial lives easier. Perrotta sees technology and AI as tools to strengthen the advisor-client relationship rather than replace it. The wider industry is moving in the same direction: 83 percent of RIAs surveyed for Schwab’s 2026 RIA Benchmarking Study said they use some form of AI, most commonly for administrative tasks. She expects technology to help the firm identify opportunities sooner, deliver more personalized advice, and free the team to

Bright Futures Wealth Management, LLC Phone: 585 231 1595 Email: info@brightftr.com Website: brightftr.com

South Street Advisors, LLC Phone: 212 292 7803 Email: info@southstreetadv.com Website: southstreetadv.com

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spend more time on the conversations that matter most. The yardstick, she says, is how clients feel. “If we can give people that level of clarity, confidence, and peace of mind, that is how we will measure the future success of Capital A.” For Prentice, the next chapter is about “thoughtful expansion by doubling down on what got us here.” Growth will come through two channels: the firm’s core private client business and its network of affiliated independent advisors. Geographically, the firm is preparing to open its first office outside the Northeast, in Fort Mill, SC, a suburb of Charlotte, NC. Prentice says the move is driven largely by clients, as a meaningful number of families have relocated to the Carolinas over the years. The data supports that trend: South Carolina was New York’s third-largest source of net migration loss in 2024, behind only Florida

and New Jersey, according to Cornell University’s Program on Applied Demographics. He adds that the new office will also serve as a model for evaluating future locations. AI will be another area of significant investment, deployed with close attention to security and privacy. “Paradoxically, I think better technology will make being a genuinely human advisor even more important,” Prentice says. “Technology can make us faster and more capable, but trust, judgement, empathy, and accountability remain human responsibilities.” Scale, he stresses, is not the aim in itself. “Growth for growth’s sake has never been the goal. We need to grow without diluting the client experience.” For the East’s leading RIAs, the portfolio is only one part of the job. The plan comes first.

Bright Futures Wealth Management, LLC is an independent, advisor-owned registered investment advisory firm dedicated to helping individuals, families, and business owners build the futures they envision. Built on an unwavering commitment to its clients, the firm provides fiduciary advice, combining personalized financial planning with a disciplined, CFA-led investment process. With no parent company or proprietary investment products, Bright Futures maintains an independent approach focused on clients’ financial goals, supported by transparent fees and long-term relationships. Its advisors leverage an integrated suite of sophisticated tools spanning institutional custodial platforms, comprehensive financial planning, investment research and analysis, and detailed portfolio reporting. These resources provide the insights needed to deliver informed guidance, monitor progress, and help clients make sound financial decisions. Bright Futures’ vision extends beyond serving clients. The firm provides a collaborative platform for financial advisors and advisory teams seeking greater independence, offering flexible affiliation opportunities, potential equity ownership, shared services, succession planning, and comprehensive health and wealth benefits. Guided by a philosophy of independent advice, forward-thinking solutions, and transparent relationships, Bright Futures is committed to creating opportunities for clients and advisors to thrive.

Since its founding in 1996, South Street Advisors, LLC has combined independent investment advice with close, long-term client relationships. It provides customized portfolio management for individuals and institutions, tailoring each portfolio to clients’ investment needs, objectives, and risk tolerance. The firm serves high-net-worth individuals and families, college endowments, and other nonprofit organizations, as well as affluent clients outside the US. International clients account for roughly half of its assets under management, reflecting its principals’ extensive global investment experience. Each principal brings more than 30 years of experience managing US and global portfolios for domestic and international clients. Their disciplined investment approach and personal attention remain central to the firm’s business. South Street Advisors is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, NY, and is expanding its presence with an additional office in Palm Beach, FL, scheduled to open on November 1.

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Industry FOCUS

Wells Fargo names COO Scott Powell as its next chief risk officer WELLS FARGO & CO. is preparing a significant shift in its executive risk management structure, announcing that chief operating officer Scott Powell will assume the role of chief risk officer when Derek Flowers retires in mid-January 2027. Flowers, who has served as CRO since 2022 and spent nearly three decades at the San Francisco-based bank, said he is proud of what the team built together. The transition signals continuity at the top of a risk function that has been central to one of the most consequential

corporate rehabilitations in modern banking history. “Derek played a pivotal role in strengthening our risk and control framework and fostering the strong risk culture that positions Wells Fargo for continued growth,” said Charlie Scharf, chairman and chief executive of Wells Fargo, in a statement in September. Scharf added that Flowers and Powell had worked in close partnership to advance what he described as a significant transformation of the bank’s risk and control capabilities.

Ameriprise runs advisor ads on ESPN, Golf Channel, CBS AMERIPRISE FINANCIAL has launched a new national advertising campaign to promote its financial advisor services in TV ads across CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN, Bloomberg, Fox Business, Golf Channel, and CBS Sports. The ads will air in 30-second and 15-second versions across national broadcast and cable news, as well as on streaming platforms Disney+, Paramount+, ESPN, HBOMax, Netflix, and Peacock. “How confident you feel about your financial future has everything to do with how confident you are in the financial advice you receive,” says a narrator in one of Ameriprise’s new ads. “Personal advice from Ameriprise Financial helps clients feel more confident.” The existing sports marketing presence for Ameriprise includes its sponsorship of the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games. Ameriprise has been an institutional finan-

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cial advisor to the NFL Players Association since 2024. “Sports remains one of the few places where large audiences come together in real time and are highly engaged in powerful moments. That’s enormously valuable in an increasingly fragmented media landscape,” said Jen Simonds, VP of consumer marketing and content strategy at Ameriprise Financial. “Sports audiences also align well with the consumers we’re targeting − people making important financial decisions and seeking advice to help them plan for the future with greater confidence.”

Behind the Great Wealth Transfer: Citizens bets on business owners A LARGE share of the Great Wealth Transfer is tied up in businesses, says Paul Casey, head of Citizens Wealth Management. He argues that piece of the intergenerational shift needs more attention from advisors. “If you think about the great wealth transfer that we’ve all read about and talked about … a high percentage of that great wealth transfer is currently embedded with business owners,” he tells InvestmentNews. “And so how do we help them think through the issue of the day, the long-term strategic planning of tomorrow that they will all be facing and dealing with?” This, he explains, could be related to acquisitions, growing their business, divesting of their business, or protecting their business. Casey notes that the company hired a team earlier this year, which is led by Mike Herron, head of insurance solutions at Citizens Private Wealth, to handle

Northern Trust bulks up family office team with New York hires NORTHERN TRUST WEALTH MANAGEMENT has added two senior hires to its Family Office Solutions team in New York, extending what has been an 18-month buildout of a business designed for ultra-wealthy families who want family office services without running an office of their own.

this type of scenario. “That’s exactly what they do,” he says of the Business Consulting Services team. “They meet with business owners, and they go through deep discovery, and they help guide them on meeting near- and longterm needs.” Certainly, the various numbers associated with the Great Wealth Transfer are mind-boggling. In 2024 Cerulli Associates projected that $124 trillion in wealth will be transferred through 2048. A year earlier, Visual Capitalist produced a diagram that showed $156 trillion in US assets by generation, based on data from Cerulli and the Federal Reserve. Private business accounted for $17 trillion, according to Visual Capitalist, or more than 10 percent of total US assets. Casey, who joined Citizens Financial Group from Morgan Stanley in 2024 to lead its wealth management push, highlights the company’s many strands as key to supporting wealth and business clients.

The Chicago-based firm said that Robert Ludricks III has joined as managing director for the Northeast region and Olof Akesson as investment director. Both will work with entrepreneurs, business owners, and multigenerational families in New York and the surrounding region. Ludricks has spent more than 35 years advising wealthy clients on investments, planning, and fiduciary issues. He comes from Brown Brothers Harriman, where he was a managing director and senior relationship manager. Before that, he spent close to two decades in senior advisory and leadership posts at Bessemer Trust.

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Family offices pivot to public equities as succession pressure mounts

PAUL CASEY

THE WORLD’S wealthiest family offices are reallocating toward public markets while simultaneously confronting a near-term generational transition they are not yet fully prepared to manage, according to Citi Wealth’s 2026 Global Family Office Report. The new report, compiled by Citi Wealth’s Global Family Office Group, which works with more than 1,900 family offices worldwide, surveyed 351 clients across 41 countries in June and July 2026. It offers the most comprehensive view yet of how single-family offices are repositioning in an era

defined by persistent inflation, rising cross-border complexity, and leadership succession timelines that have moved from the back burner to the board agenda. After years of aggressive rotation into private assets, family offices are once again directing fresh capital toward public equities. According to the Citi Wealth report, nearly half of respondents increased their public equity exposure over the past year, making listed markets the top destination for new capital. Global developed equities ranked as the most favored asset class for incremental net allocations.

“A high percentage of that great wealth transfer is currently embedded with business owners” PAUL CASEY, CITIZENS WEALTH MANAGEMENT “We have a fully robust commercial bank, capital markets, research, M&A, treasury solutions, commercial sales, of course, we have millions of customers in our consumer bank,” he says. “We have a robust business banking effort, so

we support businesses of every size up through upper middle market – then we have this private bank that we’ve been building for the last three years, and we have this wealth business that I’ve been hired to come in and grow and develop.”

AI chatbots give wrong financial answers most of the time, study finds

Akesson brings more than 20 years of experience across private markets, investment banking, and client relationships, and has spent the last 10 of those years working with

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single-family offices. He was most recently a managing director at KABR Group. Earlier, he held senior business development and sales roles at Benefit Street Partners, J.P. Morgan, and HSBC.

POPULAR AI chatbots give incorrect or incomplete answers to financial questions more often than they get them right, according to a new comprehensive benchmarking study by Saturn, an AI and technology firm serving more than 750 financial advice firms and 6,500 advisors. The Saturn “Artificial Authority” report − the most in-depth benchmarking exercise of its kind to date − tested 18 AI models across 121 different money-related questions, with each question run five

times to account for variability. In total, more than 10,000 responses were assessed. The models tested included free and paid-for versions of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and CoPilot, across a range of difficulty levels. Across all 17 current models (one retired model was excluded from the headline figures) the average accuracy rate was just 43 percent, meaning AI chatbots made mistakes 57 percent of the time, according to Saturn, which is based in the UK.

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Regulation FOCUS

Bipartisan bill clarifying ESOP stock rules sails through House THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES passed the Retire Through Ownership Act by a vote of 401 to 14, sending long-sought valuation standards for employee stock ownership plans to President Trump’s desk. The bill, which cleared the Senate unanimously in October last year, seeks to give ESOP fiduciaries a defined process for determining

what privately held company stock is worth – a question that has generated litigation and uncertainty for decades. For financial advisors who work with business owners weighing an exit, the legislation would remove a structural obstacle that has made some hesitant to pursue ESOPs as a retirement and succession tool in the first place.

Warren and Wyden press FINRA on ACATS transfer fraud gap SENATORS ELIZABETH WARREN and Ron Wyden are urging FINRA to close what they describe as a security gap in the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, the system brokerages use to move client assets between firms. In a letter to FINRA president and CEO Robert Cook, the members of the Senate Committee on Finance argued that ACATS’ speed – a feature built decades ago to stop firms from slow-walking client transfers to competitors – has effectively become a liability that fraudsters are actively exploiting. According to the letter, ACATS

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requires no notification to or authentication from the actual account holder before an outgoing firm processes a transfer. Once a request is submitted, the outgoing brokerage has just one business day to validate or object, then three business days to complete the transfer. Warren and Wyden say criminals are using stolen personal information to open accounts in a victim’s name at a separate brokerage, then initiating an ACATS pull on the victim’s legitimate holdings – often draining retirement savings before the account owner notices anything’s amiss.

Private equity faces challenge from Warren’s revived Stop Wall Street Looting Act PRIVATE EQUITY firms would be held responsible for the debts, court judgments, and pension obligations of the companies they control under legislation reintroduced by Democratic lawmakers in the Senate. The bill revives a proposal that has failed to become law since Senator Elizabeth Warren first unveiled it in 2019. The Stop Wall Street Looting Act – a proposal led by Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, alongside other concerned legislators on the Left – returns as private markets push further into retirement accounts. Joining Warren on the September 24 filing were Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tina Smith of Minnesota, and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent. Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, and Greg Landsman of Ohio led a companion bill.

House passes bipartisan bill offering fraud victims tax relief THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES has overwhelmingly voted to advance legislation that would spare fraud victims from paying taxes on retirement

Sponsors tied the timing to the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan law that took effect this summer and that barred private equity and other corporate landlords from buying up single-family homes. “This year, Congress proved with our bipartisan housing law that we can stop private equity from rolling through industry after industry, jacking up prices and leaving businesses and workers in the dust,” Warren said in a statement touting the latest push against PE. Under the bill, buyout firms, their general partners, and other insiders would be held accountable for debts their portfolio companies owe. Limited partners – the pensions, endowments, and individual investors who commit capital to a fund without having a hand or substantial voice in running it – would be exempt from that obligation. The bill would also change how private equity is taxed, ending what sponsors described as a tax subsidy for excessive

savings stolen out from under them, a measure financial advisor groups say has been years past due. The Tax Relief for Fraud Victims Act (H.R. 9500) cleared the House by a vote of 408 to 17, sending the bill to the Senate as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle looked to close a gap in the tax code that has left scam victims facing IRS bills on money they never actually kept. Under current law, the deduction for personal casualty and theft losses is largely off the table unless the loss stems from a federally declared disaster – a state of affairs that has meant added financial pain and has added insult to injury for most victims of investment scams, romance schemes, and identity theft.

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Gemini, Apex deal reflects prediction markets move toward mainstream retail investing

“This year, Congress proved with our bipartisan housing law that we can stop private equity from rolling through industry after industry”

PREDICTION MARKETS are expanding from their niche corner of the internet and moving rapidly toward the center of the retail investing experience. A new alliance between crypto exchange Gemini Space Station, Inc. and fintech infrastructure provider Apex Fintech Solutions Inc. is the latest indication of just how fast that shift is happening. The two companies announced August 24 that they have signed a letter of intent under which Gemini Titan, a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Gemini, would become the exclusive regulated venue for crypto event contracts distributed through Apex’s Futures Commission Merchant to Apex’s brokerage customers.

Under the arrangement, brokerages that plug into Apex’s FCM to offer crypto event contracts would use Gemini for execution and clearing, giving retail investors regulated exposure to prediction markets without their brokerage having to build its own exchange connectivity from scratch.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN leverage as it closes the carried interest loophole. Carried interest is the share of fund profits, often 20 percent, that managers keep, which is currently taxed at lower capital gains rates. Fund managers would also have to disclose fees, returns, and the terms of the corporate loans they make, a requirement that would reach into the fastgrowing private credit space. For PE firms receiving federal or state money, another item on the proposed legislation would require them to report how it is spent and bar them from making acquisitions or

paying investor distributions for two years after receiving it. The provision with arguably the widest reach for many client portfolios involves real estate investment trusts. The bill would repeal the 20 percent pass-through deduction for all REIT investors, not only those in healthcare, that was introduced under 2017 tax law during President Donald Trump’s first term. It would also cut off federal health program payments to providers that sell property to a REIT or pledge property as collateral for a REIT loan.

FINRA eyes fraud ‘speed bump’ rule doubling hold to 10 business days FINRA HAS formally asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a new anti-fraud rule that would let brokerage firms delay a suspicious transaction or withdrawal for up to 10 business days – double the five-day window the regulator floated just months earlier. The latest proposal centers on the new FINRA Rule 2166, which would give member firms a safe harbor to freeze a disbursement or trade

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whenever they have a reasonable belief that fraud is underway. Unlike FINRA’s existing senior-investor protections, the new rule would apply to any customer age 18 or older, reflecting the regulator’s view that scams increasingly cut across age groups.

Atkins: SEC takes ‘most historic step yet’ on crypto regulation THE SECURITIES and Exchange Commission has unveiled its most ambitious attempt yet to bring order to crypto capital markets. It’s proposed a new regulatory framework that would give digital asset issuers clear pathways to raise funds while remaining inside the boundaries of federal securities law. SEC chairman Paul S. Atkins described the proposal as a land-

mark shift. “Regulation Crypto Assets seeks to provide crypto asset entrepreneurs and market participants with clear pathways to raise capital under the federal securities laws,” Atkins said. “For too long, issuers and investors had to navigate an activist SEC weaponized against this asset class.” The result, he noted, had been uncertainty and innovation chasing offshore.

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Retirement Advisors face fiduciary blind spot as PEP adoption accelerates THE POOLED employer plan market is expanding faster than employer understanding of what joining one actually means. For those advisors guiding small-business clients on retirement plan design, that gap is a liability issue. According to Cerulli Associates, the number of pooled employer plans (PEPs) more than tripled between 2021 and 2024, driven largely by smaller employers who find the administrative and cost burden of a standalone 401(k) prohibitive. For advisors building out plan sponsor practices, PEPs have become a growth product. The problem, according to one Travelers fiduciary expert, is that many clients signing on don’t fully understand what fiduciary exposure they’re retaining. Wendy Von Wald, assistant vice president and fiduciary product

manager at Travelers in Hartford, CT, has watched that misconception spread. “Promotional materials tend to highlight reduced fiduciary liability without equally emphasizing the responsibilities that remain with the employer,” she said. “The gap between what is promoted and what the agreement actually requires is a consistent theme.” The 2019 Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act amendments to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) that enabled PEPs specify that individual employers still retain fiduciary responsibilities. Advisors who recommend PEP participation without communicating that clearly are leaving clients exposed.

Most Americans oblivious to Social Security’s projected demise A NEW national survey finds eight in 10 Americans want Social Security overhauled, with broad agreement across demographics on the same top three fixes. Along with that strong consensus, there is also unusual agreement across demographic groups on how to fix it. Increasing taxes on higher earners was the leading option, favored by 51 percent overall. Raising employer-paid Social Security taxes came second at 42 percent. Reducing or eliminating benefits for individuals above a certain

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income threshold ranked third at 38 percent. The Nationwide Retirement Institute’s 2026 Social Security Survey was conducted by the Harris Poll among 1,832 US adults aged 18 and over who currently receive or expect to receive Social Security.

FOCUS

Pooled employer plans: advisors are pitching them the wrong way FOR FINANCIAL advisors who work with business-owner clients, the pitch for pooled employer plans has often started in the same place: lower fees. Mike Ziccardi, executive vice president of CBIZ’s Retirement & Investment Solutions Practice in the US, says that framing is a mistake. “Many advisors lead with cost savings, but that can oversimplify the value proposition,” Ziccardi says. “Cost should not be the primary lens through which a PEP is evaluated.” A pooled employer plan, or PEP, allows unrelated employers to participate in a single, professionally managed 401(k) plan under one pooled plan provider. Authorized

under the SECURE Act of 2019, PEPs were designed to reduce both the administrative burden and fiduciary exposure that have historically discouraged smaller companies from offering competitive retirement benefits. As of the end of 2023, there were 142 pooled plan providers registered with the Department of Labor, and 190 PEPs in operation as of statistical year 2022 − a 135 percent increase from the year prior, with approximately 618,000 participants enrolled, according to the DOL’s 2025 Pooled Employer Plan Bulletin. Adoption has been gradual. Ziccardi says that pattern is familiar across employee benefits innovation: large

Edelman Financial Engines brings fiduciary advice to small business plans EDELMAN FINANCIAL ENGINES is doubling down on its retirement planning focus with a new program for small and mid-sized employers that are ready to outsource the fiduciary burden of being a plan sponsor. The firm recently unveiled a new integrated offering, delivered through recordkeeper ADP, that bundles investment management, 3(38) fidu-

ciary oversight, plan consulting and one-on-one participant advice into a single fee. The Edelman Financial Engines Retirement & Employee Planning Solutions program extends a relationship between the two firms that dates back to 2018, when EFE’s financial wellness and advisory services first became available to employees in eligible ADP-administered plans.

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Retirement: 401(k) balances rebound as participant engagement holds firm

MIKE ZICCARDI

“Many advisors lead with cost savings, but that can oversimplify the value proposition” MIKE ZICCARDI, CBIZ employers move first, and the middle market waits to see what happens. The economics compound that inertia. Employer contributions − typically the single largest plan expense − remain unchanged whether a company stays in an individual plan or moves to a PEP, which limits the urgency to act. But Ziccardi argues the conversation has shifted, and those who haven’t kept pace are leaving value on the table. “The conversation has evolved well beyond investments,” Ziccardi says. “Historically, many employers viewed

Retirement crisis fears hit record high EIGHT IN 10 Americans now believe the United States faces a retirement crisis. It’s the highest level recorded since the National Institute on Retirement Security began tracking the measure, and it comes as persistent inflation, mounting debt, and rising healthcare costs erode confidence in the nation’s retirement system. The NIRS’s report Retirement Insecurity 2026: Americans’ Views of Retirement, based on an online survey of

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retirement plan advisors primarily through the lens of investment oversight. Today, fiduciary risk management, governance, cybersecurity, participant outcomes, fee reasonableness, and operational compliance are often taking center stage.” Ziccardi sees that shift pushing the business toward specialization − generalists are losing ground to firms that can speak fluently to fiduciary risk and regulatory compliance, a trend playing out across the retirement plan advisory space.

1,203 adults aged 25 and older conducted between October and November 2025 by Greenwald Research, reveals that the share of Americans who see a retirement crisis has risen sharply from 67 percent in 2020. “Americans are telling us that retirement security is becoming harder to achieve as they struggle with the affordability of everyday life,” said Dan Doonan, executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit research organization.

PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP says retirement account balances climbed sharply in the second quarter of 2026, with average balances for its clients’ accounts rising 9.6 percent quarter over quarter and 12.6 percent year over year. It’s a rebound the firm’s head of workplace savings says reflects the payoff of consistent, long-term saving behavior rather than reactive decision-making. The Principal Financial Well-Being Index found that 69 percent of business owners and decision-makers at companies ranging from two to 10,000 employees report employees delaying retirement, with 71 percent of those employers pointing to rising costs of living and inflation as the primary cause. However, Teresa Hassara, SVP, workplace savings and retirement solutions at Principal Financial Group, told InvestmentNews that the data from the firm’s 401(k) recordkeeping book, one of the largest in the country, tells a story of participants staying the course. “What stands out to me is the

value of consistent saving habits and long-term thinking,” Hassara said. “Improved market performance during the quarter certainly contributed to those higher balances, but participant engagement remained encouraging as participation and deferral behavior remained positive. That suggests participants largely stayed committed to their retirement plans rather than reacting to short-term market movement.”

Inflation, healthcare costs drive retiree financial stress, Cerulli research shows

INFLATION AND rising healthcare costs are eclipsing every other worry for American retirees, according to new research from Cerulli Associates, adding fresh urgency to a planning gap advisors are still working to close. The latest Cerulli research found that 40 percent of retirees report experiencing at least a moderate level of financial stress. That figure falls to 29 percent among retirees who

have a financial plan in place but climbs to 69 percent among those still working on one – a gap Cerulli says points directly to the value of ongoing planning conversations. Inflation topped the list of stressors, cited as a high or very high concern by 21 percent of retirees, followed by healthcare and longterm-care expenses at 16 percent and worries about an economic downturn at 14 percent. Unlike younger investors with decades to recover from a downturn, retirees face an outsized risk from market shocks just as inflation quietly erodes the income streams they built their retirement around. “Retirement has long been the key financial goal for clients, and investment tailoring has been focused on ensuring the longevity of those investments,” said John McKenna, senior analyst at Cerulli.

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Financial anxiety is eroding US worker productivity NEARLY TWO-THIRDS of American workers are living with money-related anxiety, and the consequences are no longer confined to their personal finances. TELUS Health’s Q2 2026 Mental Health Index found that 64 percent of US workers experience financial anxiety, with 58 percent identifying the cost of living as their primary money concern. Fifteen percent say that financial stress is directly hurting their ability to perform at work − a figure that climbs sharply among specific groups. Workers under 40 are three times more likely than those over 50 to report productivity losses tied to financial strain. Working parents are twice as likely to experience the same. And managers, often expected to

What you think you know about women investors may be costing you clients THE FINANCIAL advice industry has long operated on a set of assumptions about women investors, including that they lack confidence, delay decisions out of anxiety, and need emotional handholding. But a new study from Vanguard suggests those assumptions are not

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model stability for their teams, are 60 percent more likely to see their own output suffer as a result of money worries. “For the large majority of US workers, survival has eclipsed long-term planning,” said Paula Allen, global leader of research and insights at TELUS Health. She noted that the combination of financial anxiety and inadequate employer support is generating real operational costs for organizations. The findings arrive as financial stress continues to rise among American workers, a trend that has drawn increasing attention from benefits advisors and plan sponsors alike. The TELUS data adds weight to earlier signals that the problem is becoming structural rather than cyclical.

only inaccurate but may be costing advisors some of their most valuable clients. The Vanguard Women & Wealth Study, conducted with research firm 8 Acre Perspective and based on a survey of 1,602 US investors (1,002 women and 600 men) identifies four persistent myths about female investors and presents data that directly contradicts each one. “A financial plan should evolve just as your life does,” said Massy Williams, Vanguard’s head of wealth management, describing how women’s financial priorities tend to shift over time as wealth accumulates and life circumstances change. The findings arrive as women represent what Janel Jackson, head of bank and institutional atVanguard Financial Advisor Services, called “one of the biggest growth opportunities for advisors today.”

Why advisors need to prepare heirs, not just assets AS AN estimated $84 trillion in assets changes hands across generations over the coming decades, the wealth management industry has largely focused on the financial mechanics of transfer − trusts, tax strategies, and succession structures.

“We spend a great deal of time preparing assets for heirs,” Becker tells InvestmentNews. “We also need to prepare heirs for the assets.” That conviction sits at the heart of a growing conversation among advisors about the role of the ethical will − not

“We spend a great deal of time preparing assets for heirs. We also need to prepare heirs for the assets” ERIC BECKER, CRESSET Eric Becker, founder and co-chairman of Cresset, the Chicago-based multifamily office with more than $260 billion in assets under management and advisement, believes that framing misses something fundamental.

a legal instrument but a personal document capturing the values, experiences, and life lessons that underpin a family’s wealth. As advisors scramble to engage the next generation before inheritance

Advisors’ biggest blind spot? Tax and estate planning, says Integrated Partners president TAX AND ESTATE planning − not market volatility − is the area where advisors most often fall short for clients, according to Andree Mohr, president of Integrated Partners, who says that the RIA has the tools to solve this problem.

Integrated Partners, which supports more than 280 advisors, has long touted the importance of simplification, advisor-centric planning, and technology. Last year, for example, the company launched its Integrated Advisor Dashboard and RAI, its AI assistant.

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Gateway Financial Partners launches coaching program for new advisors WITH THE continuing challenges of bringing new advisors into the wealth management and advisory industry, firms are seeking new ways to engage. Gateway Financial Partners, a Glastonbury, CT-based hybrid registered investment advisor supporting 200 affiliated financial advisors across 24 states, has just launched a structured coaching and development program aimed at reversing the wealth manage-

ment industry’s persistently high failure rate among newer advisors. The program, called Gateway Elevate for Next Gen Advisors, leverages an exclusive partnership with Joe Lukacs, a veteran financial advisor coach and founder of the Magellan Network who brings 32 years of methodology and more than 70,000 coaching sessions to the initiative.

ERIC BECKER

events force the issue, Becker argues that this conversation is precisely where an advisor can differentiate. Becker wrote his first ethical will in 2007 because he wanted his children to have his words and perspective if something happened to him unexpectedly. What began as a practical exercise evolved into something larger. “I came to see the ethical will as a living document that could evolve as our family and I evolved,” he says. “It is not a substitute for an estate plan. It is a complement to one, because it

But what does Mohr see as the biggest headache advisors face today? “I would definitely say it focuses around tax and estate planning − so less around your basic financial planning but more focusing on tax and estate planning and how do they bring solutions to their clients,” she told InvestmentNews. “A lot of times our clients are worried about things like the markets,” she said, but a shortcoming in tax planning over the long term can erode clients’ wealth faster than the markets can. “Because the advisor doesn’t have a partnership with a CPA, it’s hard for them to provide really complex tax advice to their clients,” Mohr said.

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preserves a form of wealth that cannot be held in a trust: perspective.” The advisor, in Becker’s view, does not need to become a family therapist or historian to facilitate these conversations. The questions themselves can do the work. “What does this wealth mean to your family? What do you hope it makes possible? What values do you want your children to understand?” Becker suggests as entry points. “The advisor does not need to provide the answers. In fact, I do not think they should.”

Wealth transfer timing: why waiting is the costliest mistake families make WARREN BUFFETT’S announcement in July that he plans to distribute the remainder of his Berkshire Hathaway shares over eight years rather than leave them to an estate has surfaced a question many wealthy families keep deferring: when is the right time to begin transferring wealth? Sarah Salomon, head of family advisory and philanthropy services at UBS in the US, told InvestmentNews that the answer is almost always sooner than families think, and the cost of waiting is rarely just financial. “What we think other families can take from this is that waiting to

communicate and act comes with a cost,” Salomon said. “If the first time the next generation deals with the family’s wealth, intentions, or decision-making is after the wealth creator is gone, the family has missed out on opportunities for learning.” Buffett, she noted, has been making incremental transfers to family-run foundations for two decades. The eight-year pledge is not a departure – it is the continuation of a deliberate philosophy. “The recent eight-year pledge to distribute his remaining stake emphasizes the idea that responsibility and wealth can be transferred gradually,” Salomon said.

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Diamonds may not be forever, at least in value terms NATURAL DIAMOND prices have fallen more than half from their post-pandemic peak, while the once-unified diamond market splits into two distinct categories: commodity-level stones under increasing pressure from lab-grown competition, and rarer, larger gems that may hold their own. According to data from Rapaport Group, the diamond trading platform, a standard one-carat stone averaged $8,007 in September 2021. By September 2026, that figure had fallen to approximately $3,898 − a decline of 51 percent in just five years. The Diamond Standard Index, which tracks investment-grade

diamonds, hit its lowest level on record in early August 2026, hovering just above 2,500. The story is not just about falling prices but about how smaller, commercial-grade natural diamonds are losing ground rapidly to lab-grown alternatives, while larger, high-quality stones are showing signs of resilience and, in some segments, recovery. De Beers Group, an AngloAmerican subsidiary that focuses on the mining, sorting, and grading of diamonds, has reported that demand for natural diamonds above two carats began seeing price increases after the broader correction.

Cutting through the ETF noise is a key 2026 challenge for advisors THE ETF market has never been more crowded, with a continued high number of new fund launches adding to an everexpanding menu of options. Speaking with InvestmentNews, Marlena Lee, global head of investment solutions at Dimensional Fund Advisors in Austin, Texas, says the answer to that abundance is discipline in a market that shows no sign of slowing down. Lee notes that the sheer volume of products on the market has created what she calls a “paradox of choice” for advisors and their clients. “I do think it’s really important that advisors and investors have a framework for how they’re picking amongst this huge pool of ETFs,” she says. “Start with what’s your goal. Then look for things that are well diversified and have low costs. And when I say low costs, I mean a much broader view than what a lot of people focus on.”

That broader view extends well beyond the headline expense ratio. Tax costs and trading costs, she says, are just as important in painting an accurate picture of what an investor is actually paying. And she warns against performance chasing. “We do absolutely see inflows where people chase performance,” she says. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t really work. We know that past performance doesn’t continue, so there is more work that people need to do.” Her advice for advisors managing clients drawn to the shiny, trend-driven product of the moment is to scratch the itch but protect the core. “When I talk to a lot of advisors, sometimes they’ll say they let their clients do that, but they want to make sure their clients are keeping it to a very small portion of their overall

Private market allocations in 401(k) plans can lift retirement outcomes NEW CFA INSTITUTE research shows that modest exposure to private assets can improve risk-adjusted performance inside defined contribution plans; but the benefit depends heavily on which assets are chosen and how the overall fund is designed. The report from the CFA Institute Research and Policy Center, Private Markets in Retirement Plans: Returns, Risks, and the Importance of Plan Design, modeled 10,000

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accumulation paths for a stylized target-date fund (TDF) using return data from January 2010 through December 2024. It examined five private market asset classes − private equity, private debt, infrastructure, real estate, and venture capital − alongside public equities and fixed income, making it one of the most comprehensive multi-asset analyses of private market allocations in DC plans to date.

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Infrastructure and emerging markets top global asset owner wish lists INFRASTRUCTURE AND emerging market equities are emerging as the leading allocation priorities for the world’s largest institutional investors, with the majority planning to increase exposure to both asset classes over the next 12 months, according to the newly released Marsh 2026 Global Asset Owner Barometer. The study, which gathered views from 430 global asset owners managing a combined US$5.76 trillion in assets, found that more than half (approximately 50.7 percent) intend to increase infrastructure allocations, while 46.9 percent plan to boost emerging market equity exposure.

The findings point to a broad repositioning of risk across institutional portfolios as investors navigate inflation, geopolitical disruption, and a narrowing opportunity set in developed public markets. “Capital is on the move in pursuit of true diversification, inflation protection, and flexibility,” said Niall O’Sullivan, global chief investment officer, investments and retirement, at Marsh. “Investors need more than good ideas − they need integrated advice and solutions that translate strategy into action, across markets, risk, liquidity, and longterm return goals.”

MARLENA LEE

“I do think it’s really important that advisors and investors have a framework for how they’re picking amongst this huge pool of ETFs” MARLENA LEE, DIMENSIONAL FUND ADVISORS portfolio,” she says. “The bulk of the portfolio shouldn’t be chasing after the latest fad.” Per recent ETFGI data, Dimensional is the largest active ETF provider in the United States, a title that raises eyebrows among advisors who associate active management with concentrated bets, high turnover, and outsized fees. Lee is quick to draw the distinction.

“What active means when it comes to Dimensional is just we’re not tracking an index,” she says. But, she adds, “We do have a lot of similarities to index funds that people like (tend to be very cost effective, very well diversified, very low turnover) but we still think that if you have a rigid index approach, you’re leaving money on the table.”

Advisors say value, not just cost, now drives active ETF picks FINANCIAL ADVISORS have moved past the question of whether to use active exchangetraded funds and are now interrogating where the structure genuinely earns its place in a portfolio, according to new research from MSCI Inc. The index provider’s ETF Intelligence Survey 2026, which polled 450 advisors across the US and Europe, found that 87 percent already hold active ETFs and 71 percent expect to increase that exposure over the next two years.

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The survey found more than half of respondents (58 percent) said a new active ETF allocation from a manager they already use would most likely displace an existing mutual fund or comparable pooled holding. That substitution dynamic doesn’t necessarily require advisors to switch managers, as half said they would move into an active ETF version of a strategy they already hold, and 85 percent of those involved in fund selection said they’d accept an ETF share class of that same strategy.

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How Lido Advisors became subadvisor to VanEck’s first buffer ETF VANECK HAS launched its first defined-outcome fund, tapping Lido Advisors as subadvisor for a strategy designed to limit investors’ losses from declines in the S&P 500 in exchange for a cap on the upside. The VanEck U.S. Equity Buffer ETF – July (JULV), which is built to shield investors from the first 20 percent of S&P 500 losses over an approximately one-year period, uses FLEX options on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust to track index performance up to

a predetermined cap, resetting each July. It marks VanEck’s entry into a corner of the ETF market that has expanded rapidly as advisors look for ways to keep clients invested through volatile stretches. Defined-outcome products accounted for a substantial share of listed derivatives-based equity ETFs by the end of 2024, according to CFRA Research, and the category has since continued to draw large capital commitments from major asset managers.

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