2019 Barron’s, Advisors who wish to be ranked fill out a 102-question survey about their practice. We verify that data with the advisors’ firms and with regulatory databases and then we apply our rankings formula to the data to generate a ranking. The formula features three major categories of calculations: (1) Assets (2) Revenue (3) Quality of practice.

2019 Private Asset Management (PAM), Mercer Advisors was awarded the Best Private Wealth Manager for firms with over $5 billion dollars in assets under management. Mercer Advisors was selected as the winner from among eight shortlisted entrants. The PAM Awards, organized by Private Asset Management magazine, are designed for investment professionals and wealth advisors, operating within the private asset management industry and are held annually. Candidates are invited to submit responses in several categories to demonstrate developments to their business model, financial progress in business performance and service offerings. Selection is determined by growth in clients and employees, client satisfaction, and product Innovation over the course of the previous year. Winners are determined by an independent panel of industry experts and the PAM editorial team. For more information on Private Asset Management (PAM), visit fundintelligence.global.

Investment News, InvestmentNews qualified 2,206 firms headquartered in the United States based on data reported on Form ADV to the Securities and Exchange Commission as of May 1, 2019.

Wealthmanagement.com, A panel of independent judges determined the WealthManagement.com 2019 Industry Award winners. Criteria included demonstrable impact on their firm, the industry, and wealth management in general.

2019 Financial Times Top Registered Investment Advisors, The Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers is an independent listing produced annually by the Financial Times (June 2019). The FT 300 is based on data gathered from RIA firms, regulatory disclosures, and the FT’s research. The listing reflected each practice’s performance in six primary areas: assets under management, asset growth, compliance record, years in existence, credentials and online accessibility. This award does not evaluate the quality of services provided to clients and is not indicative of the practice’s future performance. Neither the RIA firms nor their employees pay a fee to The Financial Times in exchange for inclusion in the FT 300. To select the FT 300, we started by reaching out to the largest independent RIAs across the U.S. that have a minimum of $300 million in assets. To make sure the list was relevant to affluent individuals reading the FT, we required that no more than 75% of a practice’s assets be institutional. Qualified RIAs then filled out an online application, and were scored on several factors, including AUM, AUM growth rate and compliance record. Selection is independent and objective, and no money is exchanged as part of the process.

Investment News, These are the top 10 RIA’s in the Western U.S. based on assets under management.

AdvisoryHQ developed a breakthrough “Top-Down Advisor Selection Methodology” that is based on a wide range of filters including fiduciary duty, independence, transparency, level of customized service, history of innovation, fee structure, quality of services provided, team excellence, and wealth of experience. More information on their methodology can be found here.

2018 Barron’s, Mercer Advisors was listed in Barron’s Top 40 RIA list in 2018. This year, the RIA Firm ranking expanded to 40 spots (from 30 last year and 20 in 2016), to make room for the explosive growth of elite firms. The average assets under management by the top 20 RIA firms in our survey grew 40.7% since 2016, to $15.8 billion. Their operations are similarly expanding: the average number of offices rose from 20 to 31; the average number of advisors at each firm grew from 63 to 83; and the average number of advisory clients increased from 5,518 to 8,012.

Wealthmanagement.com M&A Leader of the Year, An individual executive leader (not limited to CEOs) of an independent Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) firm who has successfully led the growth of their firm through inorganic strategies such as mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures this past year. Criteria include demonstrable impact on their firm; financial gains; negotiating success, operational excellence in integrating merged/acquired firms; external benchmarks such as number of deals completed, total AUM acquired/merged, business value created, etc. These awards should not be construed by clients or prospective clients as a guarantee that they will experience a certain level of results if Mercer Advisors is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services, nor should it be construed as a current or past endorsement of Mercer Advisors by any of its clients.

Inc. 5000 – Companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2016 to 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent–not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies–as of December 31, 2019. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to three decimal places. There were four ties on this year’s Inc. 5000.

2018 Financial Advisor Magazine, Mercer Advisors was named #24 in the 2018 Top RIAs and was named #32 in the 2018 Top 50 fastest growing RIAs by Financial Advisors magazine. Financial Advisor magazine’s RIA ranking is based on responses from registered investment advisors who completed an online survey. To be included in the ranking, firms need to be independent RIAs who perform financial planning as part of their business services. Firms are ranked based on the total of their discretionary and nondiscretionary assets reported for the year on their ADV and the percentage growth in assets.

Thrive Awards – To qualify for the WealthManagement.com 2019 Thrive list of fastest-growing advisors, applicants had to be based in the U.S., offer financial services to individual clients, and be free of regulatory actions. Applications were accepted from individuals, teams and companies of all types and sizes—including solo advisors, ensembles, practices, family offices, RIAs and IBD reps.

Investor.com – The 94 financial advisory firms listed were selected using a rigorous Trust algorithm, which sorts through 23 million data points from the SEC, FINRA and manual compilations regularly. The qualifiers for the 2020 Firms to Watch are firms that hold fiduciary status, have a secure website, have a fee-only model, do not have common conflicts of interest, do not have a 12b1 conflict and wrapped up 2019 with clean disciplinary records. It is important to note that the list is not based on how many years these advisory firms have been registered or their total assets under management (AUM).

The Forbes ranking of America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors, developed by SHOOK Research, is based on an algorithm of: qualitative data, such as telephone and in-person interviews, a review of best practices, service and investing models, and compliance records; as well as quantitative data, like revenue trends and assets under management. All advisors have a minimum of seven years’ experience. Portfolio performance is not a criteria due to varying client objectives and lack of audited data. Neither Forbes nor SHOOK receive a fee in exchange for rankings.

2020 Financial Times Top Registered Investment Advisors, The Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers is an independent listing produced annually by the Financial Times (July 2020). The FT 300 is based on data gathered from RIA firms, regulatory disclosures, and the FT’s research. The listing reflected each practice’s performance in six primary areas: assets under management, asset growth, compliance record, years in existence, credentials and online accessibility. This award does not evaluate the quality of services provided to clients and is not indicative of the practice’s future performance. Neither the RIA firms nor their employees pay a fee to The Financial Times in exchange for inclusion in the FT 300. To select the FT 300, we started by reaching out to the largest independent RIAs across the U.S. that have a minimum of $300 million in assets. To make sure the list was relevant to affluent individuals reading the FT, we required that no more than 75% of a practice’s assets be institutional. Qualified RIAs then filled out an online application, and were scored on several factors, including AUM, AUM growth rate and compliance record. Selection is independent and objective, and no money is exchanged as part of the process.

Financial Advisor (FA) – To be eligible for the Financial Advisor (FA) magazine Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) ranking, firms must be independent registered investment advisors and file their own ADV statement with the SEC. They need to provide financial planning and related services to individual clients. For the 2020 ranking, firms were measured and ranked by their growth in assets under management from 2019 to 2020. On an annual basis Financial Advisor (FA) magazine invites RIA firms to complete a survey for this ranking. The specific criteria for ranking is not included in the FA summary article. Mercer Advisors paid no fees to be included in this ranking. FA magazine independently sets its ranking criteria and Mercer Advisors has no influence on the criteria. FA Magazine does not disclose how many firms were considered or applied for inclusion on the list.

Denver Business Journal – Information on The List was supplied by individual companies through questionnaires and could not be independently verified by Denver Business Journal. Only companies that replied to our inquiries were included in this List. LPL Financial, ranked No. 11 on last year’s list, declined to participate this year.