The Big Blur
April 1, 2022 By Eric Rasmussen, FinancialAdvisor To view FA's 2022 broker-dealer ranking, Click here . To view FA's 2022 extended broker-dealer ranking, Click here. As Jodi Perry, president of Raymond James’s independent contractor division sees it, the history of the broker-dealer industry is only half-written. In the last decade, the business has seen a wave of consolidation as firms with huge capital resources gobble each other up, leaving smaller firms to try navigating a rocky course of fee compression, regulation and a brutal war for talent—(especially talents with the biggest books of business). According to Cerulli Associates, the top 25 firms control 68% of the assets under management and 58% of all industry advisor affiliations. If the advisory world were seen as a tableau on the wall of a museum, the lines would increasingly seem meshed as the...