Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM

, By Halah Touryalai

By Halah Touryalai

In the first half of 2008, Camden Capital Management, a fee-only registered investment advisor (RIA) in El Segundo, Calif., added $100 million to its growing pot of client assets. By the end of the year, John Krambeer, Camden's president, reckons the firm will reel in another $50 million or so. Get this: every single dollar of that total belongs to a “breakaway client” — the RIA industry's pet phrase for investors who have come to them from the wirehouses. (See “Who Are These People?” p. 37.)

Camden Capital isn't the only RIA benefiting from Wall Street's woes this year (just check out the asset growth of Registered Rep.'s Top 100 RIAs in America list beginning on p. 39). Investment advisors at RIAs across the country say the turmoil roiling big-named Wall Street firms has resulted in a boost to their own businesses. Even wirehouse reps have admitted in no uncertain terms to Registered Rep., a Trusts & Estates sister publication, that the torrent of bad news — the breakdown of risk management, a science at which they have professed to be experts — has bruised their brands and left them embarrassed.