The Investment Advisor Racket: What They Really Do, What They Cost, and the Fiduciary Myth

So, another monster is born. While you were busy trying to figure out if you can afford eggs this week, Creative Planning announced it's swallowing SageView Advisory Group whole. The press release is a masterclass in corporate jargon, talking about "strategic partnerships" and "advancing capabilities." Give me a break.

Let's call this what it is: a consolidation play that creates a financial behemoth with $640 billion in client assets. Read that number again. $640,000,000,000. That’s a figure so large it loses all meaning. It’s an abstraction. And now, the financial futures of over 80,000 "private wealth clients" and 11,800 retirement plans are managed under one colossal roof.

This isn't a win for the little guy. It's never a win for the little guy. This is a win for the guys at the top, like Creative Planning's CEO Peter Mallouk and the private equity vultures at Aquiline who are now cashing out their "interest in the firm." They made their money. Congratulations to them. Now what about everyone else?

The PR Spin vs. Cold, Hard Reality

In the announcement, SageView's CEO John Longley says, "Together, we will become the premier wealth management and retirement plan consulting firm."

Here's my cynical translation: "We got too big to keep growing on our own, so we sold to an even bigger shark to make our early investors rich. Now we can cross-sell a whole new suite of products to our captive audience of clients who didn't ask for this."

The whole industry sells you this fantasy of finding a trusted `personal investment advisor`. They put out these neat little guides, like How to Choose a Financial Advisor in 5 Steps, telling you to look for a `fiduciary investment advisor` who puts your interests first. It's a nice story. But what does "putting your interests first" even mean when you're one of 80,000 clients? How much personal attention can you possibly get from a firm with more than 550 advisors? Do the math. It ain't pretty.

You're not a client; you're an account number. A data point in a quarterly earnings report. They'll give you a login to a slick portal, send you a glossy newsletter, and assign you to a junior associate who's probably managing 300 other people just like you. And for this privilege, you'll pay your `investment advisor fees` like clockwork.

They Call It 'Growth,' I Call It a Black Hole

This isn't Creative Planning's first rodeo. They bought Lockton's retirement arm in 2021. They bought Mesirow's in 2023. This is a pattern. It's not growth. No, 'growth' is what happens when you plant a seed and nurture it. This is a financial singularity, a black hole that pulls in smaller firms, strips them for parts, and homogenizes their services.

It reminds me of my internet provider. Twenty years ago, I had a choice of a dozen local companies. Now, I have a choice of two garbage conglomerates that charge me more every year for the exact same service. This is the same playbook, just with fancier suits.

The standard advice is to check a `registered investment advisor` (RIA) on FINRA's BrokerCheck and look for red flags. That’s cute. The real red flag is the industry itself. While regulators are busy debating topics like Investment Advisers: The Skies Continue to Clear for Crypto Asset Custody—a niche within a niche—these mega-RIAs are quietly cornering the market. It's a classic case of missing the forrest for the trees. They want us debating the fine print of whether a State Trust Company is a "qualified custodian" for digital assets. It's the perfect distraction.

They tell you to find a fiduciary, someone who is legally bound to act in your best interests. But when a firm is this big, its primary interest is self-preservation and expansion. Your personal financial goals are, at best, a secondary concern. They have to be. It’s just business...

Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe a $640 billion `RIA registered investment advisor` really can provide bespoke, individualized service to every single client. And maybe my cable bill will go down next year.

So, Who's Actually Getting Rich Here?

Let's not kid ourselves. This deal isn't about you. It wasn't designed to get you a better return or a more secure retirement. This deal is for the handful of people at the very top. It’s for the founders who get a massive payday, the private equity firm that gets its exit, and the executives who get to add another impressive line to their resumes.

The "synergies" they talk about? That's just a polite word for firing people whose jobs are now redundant. The "expanded capabilities"? That means more proprietary funds and services they can push on you. The entire machine is designed to extract fees, and a bigger machine can extract them more efficiently.

You, the person looking for an `investment advisor near me`, are just the raw material. You're the fuel that powers the multi-billion-dollar merger-and-acquisition engine. And as the industry continues to shrink into a handful of Goliaths, your power to choose shrinks right along with it. Good luck out there. You're gonna need it.