As consolidation reshapes the wealth management landscape, a critical question emerges for fiduciaries, plan sponsors, and professional advisors:
Who’s actually making the investment decisions—and on whose terms?
Canada’s “Big Six” banks now control nearly half of all long-term mutual fund assets and an estimated 90% of assets in retail brokerage accounts, according to The Globe and Mail.
In the U.S., Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) consolidators manage over $1.5 trillion, with market share growing rapidly year-over-year (Cerulli Associates).
While consolidation may appear to bring efficiency and scale, the less visible consequence is the growing separation between client mandates and manager accountability.
Institutional Control vs. Client Alignment
As wealth management firms are absorbed by large institutions or aggregator platforms, investment decisions often shift away from the advisor-client relationship. Instead, they’re shaped by internal committees, product desks, and sales targets.
This creates a growing disconnect between what the investment policy statement (IPS) calls for and what actually gets implemented.
Key implications include:
- Portfolios increasingly reflect platform priorities, not client needs
- Strategy becomes constrained by product quotas and internal mandates
- Personalization and long-term discipline are often sacrificed for scale
- Fiduciaries and planners lose transparency and control over the mandate
Even pop culture gets it! When financial institutions manage client money like this, it’s no wonder trust erodes.
What Happens When Advisors Are Absorbed into Bureaucracy
Acquisition announcements often emphasize “business as usual,” but the post-acquisition reality can be quite different. Over time, advisors may experience shifts in autonomy, responsiveness, and accountability.
Common effects include:
- Investment discretion narrowed by centralized approvals
- Lengthier decision-making cycles due to compliance layering
- Product recommendations increasingly steered toward in-house offerings
- Declining access to the portfolio manager or decision-maker
This affects both direct clients and referring professionals.
For planners, it can reduce transparency, complicate collaboration, and restrict the advisor’s ability to implement tailored solutions.
The Quiet Erosion of Choice
One of the more subtle (but deeply consequential) outcomes of consolidation is the gradual erosion of investment flexibility.
As firms scale, there’s a natural move toward standardization:
- Model portfolios become the default for efficiency
- Proprietary funds take precedence over open architecture
- Layered fee structures reduce transparency
- Alternative and private capital access is often deprioritized
For institutional investors and financial planners, this limits the ability to construct mandates with the nuance required for liability matching, cash flow planning, and long-horizon growth. When differentiation gives way to distribution, portfolios begin to reflect the platform’s needs—not the client’s.
Choosing to Work with Independent Partners
In an environment increasingly shaped by consolidation, platform pressure, and sales incentives, more fiduciaries are re-evaluating their partnerships. The case for working with independent managers is not ideological—it’s structural.
An independent partner:
- Has full investment discretion tied solely to the client’s mandate
- Operates free from institutional product constraints
- Offers transparent, unbundled fee structures
- Maintains the agility to respond without bureaucratic delay
- Prioritizes long-term stewardship over short-term reporting optics
A Note on Independence
MacNicol & Associates Asset Management is a privately held, fully independent wealth management firm serving families, institutions, and planners who value investment discipline, direct accountability, and long-term alignment.
With no parent bank, no product shelf, and no external shareholders, we operate with true discretion, building tailored mandates around the needs of our clients and partners, not institutional frameworks.
If you are a planner, consultant, or investment committee seeking an independent discretionary partner, we welcome a conversation.
