Recently Released!!!
Date Published: June 2, 2023
Summary PowerPoint Deck: 301 Slides
Reference PowerPoint Deck: 727 Slides

The purpose of this research is to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of the (overstated) break-away brokers trend. Break-away brokers are generally defined as the successful captive (employee) financial advisors from the wirehouses, other national brokerage firms, regional brokerage firms, investment banks, private banks, retail banks, insurance companies, & even discount brokerage firms that choose to go independent, repositioning their businesses as independent advisors (independent reps and/or fee-based financial advisors (RIAs)). That said, industry data is extremely sloppy, with many sources including financial advisors nudged out by their former employers due to low productivity (broken away brokers), other sources confusing data for financial advisor teams, financial advisors, & registered assistants, and almost all sources including captive advisors that move to other captive models and independent advisors that move to other independent models. Hence, the goal of this research is to accurately measure the narrowly defined break-away brokers trend of successful financial advisors moving from captive to independent models. This research leads to critical conclusions for Tiburon's coverage of financial advisor channels, captive advisors, full-service brokerage firms, insurance agents, and independent advisors.

This research addresses the historical phases of break-away brokers, including:

• Emergence Phase
• Early Broker Protocol Phase
• Late Broker Protocol Phase
• Data Accuracy Phase

This research addresses the number of financial advisor teams & financial advisors changing firms and summarizes the sources and destinations of those financial advisors who move, including by channel & by firm.

This research then re-sizes the more narrowly defined break-away brokers trend to only count financial advisor teams & financial advisors who move from captive to independent models, utilizing three overlapping yardsticks, including:

• Financial Advisor Teams & Financial Advisors Changing Firms
• Successful Financial Advisor Teams & Financial Advisors Changing Firms
• Break-Away Brokers

Finally, focusing only on break-away brokers, the research then undertakes a destination analysis, including half-way houses, independent broker/dealers, & custodians.

And this research makes several future predictions for break-away brokers, including:

• Continuing Moderate Size Trend of Financial Advisor Teams & Financial Advisors Changing Firms
• Successful Financial Advisor Teams & Financial Advisors Changing Firms to Continue to Dominate Movement of Assets Under Management & Administration
• Independent Broker/Dealers to Continue to Lead Wirehouses as Leading Sources of Financial Advisor Teams & Financial Advisors Changing Firms
• Independent Broker/Dealers to Also Continue to Lead All Channels as Destination of Financial Advisor Teams & Financial Advisors Changing Firms
• Captive-to-Captive and Independent-to-Independent Movement Trends to Remain Larger than Captive-to-Independent (Break-Away Brokers) Trend
• Moderate Growth in the Relatively Small Captive-to-Independent (Break-Away Brokers) Trend
• Half-Way Houses to Continue to Capture Largest Captive-to-Independent Moves (Break-Away Brokers)
• Continuing Extremely Small Boomerang Trend