Just so you guys know. He was not a wirehouse.

Some of the sleaziest FA's in my area are RIA. I don't buy the holier than thou rhetoric from the RIA side.

He was a hedge fund and he distributed through "feeder funds".  Some of those feeder funds were on wirehouse platorms but he certainly wasn't a wirehouse and I think RIAs and hedgefunds are mutually exclusive.  If he wasn't then he would have had to disclose his positions periodically....

[quote=ZwingDing]

Some of the sleaziest FA's in my area are RIA. I don't buy the holier than thou rhetoric from the RIA side.

[/quote]

That's not unique to RIA's - there are sleazy FA's in all aspects of our industry.  At least with an RIA, they have the fiduciary issues hanging over their heads and you would think they'd be smart enough to not jeopardize their careers, reputations and a lot of money by operating in a sleazy manner. 

As for the rhetoric, you can understand it, especially compared to a wirehouse or insurance based advisor who is seemingly more motivated by commissions (not all of them, mind you), but mostly due to pressure from management to "perform."  When you're climbing "commission hill" every month, you're more apt to push product and try to sell your clients something rather than taking a fee-based/fee-only approach in an RIA or Indy model.  When you're running your own shop, most if not all of that evaporates and you can do your thing on your timeframe.