Neither rankings and/or recognitions by unaffiliated rating services, publications, media, or other organizations, nor the achievement of any professional designation, certification, degree, job promotion, license, membership in any professional organization, or any amount of prior experience or success should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if Waverly Advisors is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. Rankings published by magazines, and others, generally base their selections exclusively on information prepared and/or submitted by the recognized adviser. Rankings are generally limited to participating advisers (see participation criteria/methodology below). Unless expressly indicated to the contrary, Waverly Advisors did not pay a fee to be included on any such ranking. No ranking or recognition should be construed as a current or past endorsement of Waverly Advisors by any of its clients. Waverly Advisor’s Chief Compliance Officer remains available to address any questions regarding rankings and/or recognitions, including providing the criteria used for any reflected ranking.
The methodology consisted of first analyzing a variety of core data points from AccuPoint Solutions’ proprietary database of registered investment advisors. This analysis started with an initial list of 39,818 RIA firms from the Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory database. Through a process, the list was eventually cut to 904 RIAs, with those firms meeting CNBC’s proprietary criteria.
CNBC staff sent an extensive email survey to all those firms that met the initial criteria to gather more details. In turn, those advisory firms wishing to be ranked filled out the comprehensive application in regard to their practice. The CNBC team verified that data with those firms and with the SEC regulatory database. AccuPoint once again applied CNBC’s proprietary weighted categories to further refine and rank the firms, ultimately creating the list of the top 100.
CNBC does not charge any type of fee to advisors to be listed in the annual ranking.
The primary data points used in the analysis were reviewed, either as a minimum baseline or within a range, eliminating those firms that did not meet CNBC’s requirements. Once the initial list was compiled, weightings were also applied accordingly. These data points included: