The Financial Times is shutting down its annual ranking of RIAs.
The British newspaper had published its ranking of advisors, the FT 300, since 2014.
Loren Fox and Michael Ferraro, executives at Financial Times subsidiary Money-Media, told advisors in an email reviewed by Citywire that ‘shifting market dynamics have made it more challenging for us to monetize the FT 300 process – especially in a way that didn’t weaken the integrity of the ranking.’
‘This is not a decision we made lightly,’ the email continued. ‘Whether we eventually revive it depends on whether we can find the advertising and sponsorship revenues necessary to support the work involved.’
Fox, the director of research at Money-Media, added in an email to Citywire: ‘We continue to have a bullish outlook on the growth of the RIA market, and to allow us to review the ways we serve this growing community we are suspending the ranking in 2021.’
Many outlets publish lists of top advisory firms, including Barron’s and CNBC. In 2020, Citywire published a list of the fastest-growing RIAs in each state.
The Financial Times’ RIA ranking methodology screened out firms with less than $300m in assets under management and then scored them based on their assets under management, asset growth rate, compliance record, industry certifications, online accessibility and the number of years they had been in business.
Notable firms on the company’s 2020 list included Mercer Global Advisors, Personal Capital, Betterment, Edelman Financial Engines and Captrust.
This article originally appeared on Citywire.
