RIAs are individual financial advisors or companies that provide their clients with financial advice. They have a fiduciary duty towards their clients and are either registered with the SEC or with other State Security Regulators.
Given the importance of RIAs, investors and institutions look for advisors who understand and conform to their investment objectives. This is where Radient comes in. We provide a platform for investors and institutions to search for RIAs that cater to specific requirements. Users can look for RIAs based on assets under management (AUM), location (state/city), types of clients, or services provided. Users can also find the funds managed or advised by these RIAs.
RIAs file an SEC-mandated Form ADV annually, which covers the business information, industry affiliations and private fund reporting of the firms. Radient leverages data from this form to allow users to track RIA growth, new fund launches and owners of these firms.
Our blog focuses on leveraging Radient's Advanced Search to filter through thousands of Form ADVs filed by the entire universe of RIAs.
Looking for RIAs based on Services Provided
Some of the common services provided by RIAs are :
- Asset management
- Financial Planning Services
- Reporting and record-keeping
- Life planning
- Retirement planning
- Estate planning
- Concierge services
Users can search for RIAs providing these specific services seamlessly using the Advanced Search Bar on Radient.
Example: Searching for RIAs that provide ‘Financial Planning’ services by filtering for firms that filed Form ADV between January 2022 to September 2023.
The search result displays 18,442 firms that adhere to these filters. You can add more filters such as location, client type etc to reduce the search results further.
Users can export this list or individually analyze the recent Form ADV of the filtered firms they are interested in. Some firms that provide financial planning services are – Morgan Stanley, SEI Investments Management Corp, RBC Capital Markets LLC etc.
RIAs in a Specific Location
In situations where investors wish to have their RIAs locally present, Radient allows for location-based search. Users can look up RIAs based in a certain state, who have filed Form ADVs in the desired period.
Example: Looking for RIAs in the state of New York, who filed Form ADV between 1st Jan 2022 to 30th Sept 2023. Radient Advanced Search displays a filtered list of 3,613 firms that users can leverage to understand the RIAs present in their areas.
RIAs by Client Type
While the majority of RIA firms focus on providing services to high net worth (HNI) individuals, some other potential types of clients are:
- Banks
- Insurance companies
- Government entities
- Charitable organizations
- Foundations
- Investment companies
- Business development companies
- Pension or 401k plans
A large number of advisory firms also offer their portfolio management services to other investment advisory firms as a core or secondary service offering. In addition, RIAs may also manage a pooled investment vehicle.
Users can look for RIAs servicing specific client types via the Radient Advanced Search bar. You can filter across client categories and specifically narrow down on the Regulatory AUM of the client type category, the number of clients under the category, the percentage of that category to the total number of clients, etc.
Users can also look for the client type with the highest AUM, which is a calculated metric on Radient!
RIAs by AUM ranges
In 2022, the number of registered investment advisors reached 15,114.
In 2022, there was an 11.1% decrease in the assets under the management of investment advisory firms registered with the SEC, even as the number of advisers increased by 2.1%. The majority of these advisers operate as small businesses, with 91.7% having 100 or fewer non-clerical employees. Additionally, 70.2% of them oversaw less than $1 billion in assets, and the majority, 88.5%, managed less than $5 billion in assets.
Leveraging the Advanced Search bar on Radient, users can export a list of RIAs that fall within the specified AUM range.
Example: Filtering for RIAs with AUM serviced between $1M to $100M for the year of 2022 displays a list of 13,381 firms on Radient.
RIAs Servicing Private Funds
Radient allows users to search for firms that :
- Advise private funds
- Has service funds
Users can also look for specific fields related to the private fund disclosure on the Form ADV like private funds with specific AUM ranges, related person ownership in the private funds, by total gross asset value of funds and by service providers etc.
Radient’s Advanced Search Bar allows users to apply various combinations of filters to narrow down the list of RIAs that best suit the users’ criteria.
Some other criteria to consider when searching for RIAs
Fees:
RIA firms are compensated on a fee basis for their advice, management and planning services and typically charge their fees in accordance with a flat or hourly fee, percentage AUM or for a specific project such as a tailored financial plan. It is very common for an RIA to charge a percentage fee and the percentages may be tiered or structured into breakpoints related to the number of assets a particular client may have.
Leveraging Radient’s Advance Search Bar to Track Fund Activity
Form ADV requires mandatory re-filing/ amendment whenever an RIA firm has a major disclosure, errors to rectify, or updates to report. Form ADV amendments filed throughout the year can help users derive insights into new fund inception or termination. Radient updates its data daily and therefore makes this tracking easier.
Track Owners of the Firms
Radient’s Advisers Tab allows users to look up firms and funds via the name of their indirect and direct owners. Users can also look up the names of the owners of funds and firms via the firm’s Form ADV filing.
Type in the name of the individual in the ‘Name’ search space on the Advisers Tab and Radient will filter for the firm, type of owner, firm AUM, CRD No, and country that the individual is associated with.
To know more about Radient’s Advanced Search Bar visit the Advisers Tab or write to us at support@radientanalytics.com
