FB3 riabiz.com http://www.riabiz.com/a/495574093450444.81why-a-25-billion-ria-jusbwenbalex-murguias-startups-financial-planning-software Why a $25 billion RIA just went with Alex Murguia's startup's financial planning software by Lisa Shidler Brooke's Note Think about how far down the value-proposition food chain financial planning has become to providers of financial services. At the top of the chain is investment banking and momentous fees or the interest income generated by the colossal book of loans at a bank, or the life insurance policies sold to tens of thousands of employees at a large corporation. For any of these companies, selling financial products is the most secondary of endeavors. Then, on an even lower plane, comes financial planning. Even at many RIAs, financial planning is still safely secondary to investment management. So it is an important story for RIABiz heading into 2015 when a financial services firm like the Buckingham Companies makes an effort to revamp both its technology and its approach in favor of putting financial planning as a top value-add. Also worth noting is that this big and fast-growing RIA chose a fledgling startup as its partner — almost an unspoken rebuke to the more well known planning software makers in the bargain. But whether real-time data is crucial to less-than-real-time plans remains to be seen. The Buckingham Companies — the St. Louis-based Dimensional Fund Advisors' TAMP and RIA— ballooned from $5 billion to $25 billion in managed assets in the last year by continuing to market intelligently to accountants who advise on investments. But for all the success of Buckingham Asset Management LLC and BAM Advisor Services, two divisions of the Buckingham Companies that combine to account for nearly a third of the managed assets of the super roll-up, Focus Financial Partners LLC, its executives were apparently concerned that their firm's value proposition was vulnerable in the one area in which it ne