Fee Revenue Surged at the Largest IBD’s Last Year
May 2, 2022 By Bruce Kelly, Investment News Independent broker-dealers, so called because they pay advisers as independent contractors and not employees, continued to see a surge in revenue last year from advisers charging clients fees, a notable achievement for an industry that less than a decade saw the majority of its revenue derive from commissions on the sales of products. Indeed, the rising tide in revenue from fees, which firms typically charge clients based on assets and before the start of a new quarter, was so strong among the largest independent broker-dealers that in 2021 fees comprised 54% of revenue from the top 25 broker-dealers in this year’s InvestmentNews survey. Meanwhile, revenue from commissions was 34% and other revenue, primarily generated from interest-rate spreads, was 12% Those InvestmentNews calculations don’t capture the entire IBD marketplace: They...
