Wirehouses are most productive channel: Cerulli

Although wirehouses are shrinking, the study finds their reps have an average AUM of $198 million, versus an average of $88.1 million industrywide.

Despite their shrinking number of advisers, wirehouses are more productive than other channels, averaging $198 million in assets under management per adviser compared with $88.1 million across all the industry, according to a report by Boston-based researcher Cerulli.

Wirehouse AUM per rep increased 14.4% year-over-year, the study found. But as the wirehouses prioritize productivity, other advisory channels are capturing market share, Cerulli said.

“The wirehouse channel, which has lost 6.2 percentage points in asset market share since 2010, is projected to cede an additional 6.5 percentage points of total asset market share by year-end 2025,” Cerulli said.

It projects that by 2025, 30.6% of the industry’s assets will be managed by advisers in the independent and hybrid registered investment adviser channels. The national/regional broker-dealer channel (at 15.2%) is already overtaking the wirehouse channel (at 14.9%) in head count market share, Cerulli said.

“Wirehouses are playing to their strength and providing advisers with the tools they need to capture and grow wealth,” Marina Shtyrkov, an associate director at the firm and author of the report, U.S. Advisor Metrics 2021: Client Acquisition in the Digital Age, said in a statement.

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