There are over 16,000 registered investment advisers (RIAs) who filed with the SEC in 2026. Plenty of studies have analyzed this cohort in aggregate. Very few have analyzed a specific cohort like you will see Invisionary Financial do in this analysis.
The Cohort
Using SEC Form ADV data from 2020–2026, this analysis focuses on Investment Advisers (“IA”) whose principal office is currently based in Illinois and have between $200M and $1B Regulatory Assets Under Management (RAUM). In order to narrow in on retail/private wealth advisors, this cohort was further filtered down to only those where individual (non-HNW clients) RAUM + HNW client RAUM is greater than 80% of total RAUM. Finally, firms with just 1 advisory employee were removed since their operational dynamics tend to be different from multi-advisor firms. After applying all those filters, it leaves 141 firms as shown in the chart above and as used throughout the rest of this analysis.
Winning the Ideal Clients
| FY25 Total RAUM Bucket | Private Wealth Client Account Size (Median) | % of Total RAUM From HNW Clients (Median) |
|---|---|---|
| $200–300M | $1.07M | 72.2% |
| $300–400M | $1.11M | 77.8% |
| $400–500M | $1.90M | 86.0% |
| $500–600M | $2.91M | 80.8% |
| $600–700M | $1.59M | 86.4% |
| $700–800M | $1.14M | 65.7% |
| $800–900M | $0.74M | 64.9% |
| $900M–1B | $4.20M | 96.9% |
Smaller firms tend to have a lower portion of their Total RAUM coming from High Net Worth (HNW) clients and a smaller client account size. It is increasingly common for firms to grow their total RAUM by winning more HNW individuals with larger account sizes. However, something interesting was done by the firms that currently sit in the $700M–$900M bucket. These firms actually did not appear to cater to HNW individuals. They were more focused on the masses and made the business model work with very strong operational efficiency. At the same time, there are the firms in the highest bucket ($900M–$1B) in this analysis’ cohort that became successful by overwhelmingly catering to HNW clients in a concierge-like manner. In short, there is more than one way to be successful as a wealth advisor in Illinois.
Increasing Support Staff per Advisor
The bigger the firm, the more support staff there tends to be per advisor. Simply put, the support staff can handle the tedious work so that the advisors are freed up to do the high-value work. This finding has been corroborated by prior research from Kitces as well.
Many firms have historically believed that hiring support staff was an unaffordable luxury. But now, AI can (and is) providing support in key areas that allow firms to punch above their weight class. Specific examples of that can be found here and here. It is worth noting that AI cannot (and should not) completely replace human labor. However, AI can handle significant portions of the tedious work so that humans are freed up to focus on the high-value work.
The Firms That Get Acquired
Finally, as the wealth advisor retirement crisis looms, it’s worth taking a look at the firms in this cohort who have been acquired. This next section looks at the firms that have been acquired since 2020. The first column shows the median for firms still operating in FY25. The second column shows how much larger those metrics were for the acquired firms than the median firms during the year of their acquisition. The third column extrapolates out those metrics to what they might look like in FY25.
| Metric | FY25 Median Firm | Acquired Firms vs. Peers at Year of Acquisition | Acquired Firms Extrapolated to FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private clients per advisor | 57 | 1.2x more | 71 |
| Median private client account size | $1.3M | 1.8x larger | $2.3M |
| Private client RAUM per advisor | $93M | 1.9x larger | $165M |
| Support staff per advisor | 0.38 | 1.7x more | 0.64 |
Is it a perfect method for identifying acquisition-worthy firms? Definitely not. Acquirers look at far more than just four metrics. But it does seemingly underscore the importance of having a good clientele mix and servicing them efficiently. On the latter, a recent article from Investment News noted how “firms that successfully embed agentic AI into their workflows - reducing operational overhead and boosting advisor capacity - are now commanding valuation multiples significantly higher than their less technologically advanced peers.”
Conclusion
The dynamics in the wealth management industry are complex and evolving. At the same time, every change can be an opportunity for the forward-thinking firms poised to capitalize on it.
Curious about a different cut of this data? Or want to discuss how to apply these findings to your firm? Book a call with Invisionary Financial to discuss further.