Having watched the tug-of-war between brokers and fund families over the past 25 years, I can rightly say that the winners in the battle to “own” the customer relationship are the big brokerage houses and banks. At this point in time, the vast majority of mutual fund assets are in collective accounts that are not directly controlled by the fund companies.
Let’s take a look at the state of the country with a brief overview of how the industry is developing and what IBDs remain.
In general, investors have …
