What’s in a custodian’s name? When you’re an advisor working with upper-high-net-worth clients considering a move to independence, it may mean more than people traditionally think.
Nate Lenz, CEO of Concurrent, said his firm’s decision to add Goldman Sachs as a custody option has been a draw for some captive advisors looking to move into the RIA space.
“When [an advisor] is serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, those clients are used to a certain caliber of institution,” Lenz said. “When you break away, if Goldman is an option, teams can say, ‘you know what, we can preserve that sense of quality and standard when discussing the change.”
Lenz said Concurrent added Goldman as a custodian in late 2024 to fuel a recruiting push that has seen its assets under management more than double to $21 billion. Although Goldman has been a draw for some, Lenz said, Fidelity Investments is still the largest custodian among its more than 90 partner firms.
Keaton & Sams Wealth Management, which left Raymond James to join Concurrent in October 2025, was one of the advisor teams that liked the high-end name recognition of Goldman.
“I love Concurrent, and they have far exceeded our expectations—but it was not an entity our clients had heard of,” said Bill Keaton, managing director of the $1.3 billion firm.
Keaton said that when speaking to clients about the move, the team led with the fact that Goldman would be holding their assets before mentioning Concurrent as a back-office and compliance partner.
Goldman Sachs has been added to custody options for some of the larger aggregators in space, such as Dynasty Financial Partners, NewEdge Capital Group, and one of its first clients in 2021, Steward Partners. The New York-based firm has also been added to many full consolidator RIAs as a draw for upper-high-net-worth clients, including Creative Planning, Prime Capital and Perigon.
Mark Tibergien of Mark Tibergien Insights, and the former CEO of BNY Pershing, agreed with the premise that the Goldman Sachs name can draw advisors seeking to “borrow” the reputation of a prominent brand when moving to the independent space—but noted that can also be true of other custodians.
“In some respects, BNY Pershing, Fidelity and Schwab also use their identity as a reason why advisors should select them as custodians,” Tibergien said. “BNY, as an example, is the largest custodian in the world and the oldest financial institution in the U.S. Fidelity is prominent because it is the market leader in corporate retirement plans and a leading fund manager, which many clients and prospects have already been exposed to. Schwab is one of the larger…if not the largest… retail brand names in financial services.”
Which brand an advisor is attracted to “can often influence their decision,” Tibergien said, and it’s increasingly common for “advisors to use some combination of custodians.”
Charles Schwab is still by far the behemoth in the RIA custody space, leading across all RIA sizes, according to AdvizorPro, followed by Fidelity and BNY Pershing.
Among RIAs established since 2020, AdvizorPro found that over 55% use Schwab as custodian, with only 2.8% using Goldman Sachs. Tech-forward upstart Altruist had 5.6% market share, as did legacy player TradePMR, now with Robinhood, at 9.6%.
“Our mission is to support independent advisors with industry-leading capabilities,” Jeremy Eisenstein, managing director, head of Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions, wrote via email. “Just as we’ve done for our institutional clients for many decades, we utilize the depth and breadth of our platform to elevate the service these RIAs are able to provide their clients.”
Shirl Penney, CEO of St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Dynasty Financial, wrote via email that the draw of Goldman is about more than just a name.
“Private wealth teams at wirehouses often like the Goldman name for custody for their clients but also like the capital markets access with research, trading, derivatives, structured products, lending and asset management capabilities also connected to custody,” Penney wrote. “Having Goldman sit alongside Schwab, Fidelity and Pershing as custody options makes the RIA offering even more compelling for the ongoing independent movement.”
Fidelity and Schwab’s pullback on long-short equity strategies has also made Goldman a potential answer to RIAs that like that approach for UHNW clients. Goldman now offers RIAs third-party long-short equity SMA strategies, with its own long-short SMA strategies to be available later this summer, according to a spokesperson.
Consultant Tibergien said the bank will continue to focus on the custodial space “because it provides access to the fastest growing segment of financial advice.” He also noted that Goldman’s bundling of solutions, such as banking, asset management and access to alternatives, “seems to resonate with breakaways and consolidators.” That’s in contrast to some of the early days of the RIA movement, “whose DNA is fiduciary advice.”
Keaton of Keaton & Sams said the firm has tapped Goldman’s capabilities for investment options, including the recent SpaceX public offering, and often leverages its financial research and insights. He also said, however, that the technology platform with Goldman lacked some of the efficiencies the team had seen at Raymond James. Keaton, however, said the custodian listened to their needs and is working on fixes.
“We’re a pretty vocal team,” Keaton said. “They have been very, very willing to work with us on stepping up their tech platform.”
