Ownership
Who owns your book of business?
Advisors talk about “my book” for a whole career. Whether that phrase describes an asset or a job depends on three documents, and they were all signed on your first day.
Ten seconds · which are you?
Employee at a wirehouse or an employee broker-dealer
W-2, the firm’s name on the door and on the client agreement. Assume the firm owns the client relationships and records until your own agreement tells you otherwise. Your route to value is the firm’s program.
Registered representative at an independent broker-dealer
You most likely do own the client relationships, subject to your broker-dealer approving any transfer. This is the group most often wrong about which line it is on. Read the rep agreement, not the recruiting brochure.
Owner or part-owner of a registered investment adviser
You own an entity, its advisory contracts and its enterprise value. That is a genuine sale with genuine buyers — and a different set of regulatory mechanics.
The rest of this page assumes you know which line you are on. If two of them could describe you, you are probably the second one.
What your employment agreement usually says
Wirehouse and most broker-dealer agreements state plainly that client relationships, client data, and client records belong to the firm. You are compensated for servicing them. That does not make your work less valuable — it means the value is realized through the firm rather than sold to a third party. It is also why a retiring employee advisor cannot run an open-market process: the firm is the only party able to transfer the asset, which is why the firm’s program is the only bid.
Non-solicitation and what it actually restricts
A non-solicit typically bars you from initiating contact with clients for a defined period after you leave. It does not usually bar clients from finding you. The distinction sounds academic and is the entire ballgame in practice — and how it is enforced varies enormously by firm, by state, and by how you exit.
Independent broker-dealer reps are in between
At an independent broker-dealer, reps commonly do own their client relationships, subject to the broker-dealer’s approval of any transfer and to the rep agreement’s terms. This is the group most likely to believe they are in one category when they are actually in the other. Read the rep agreement, not the recruiting brochure.
RIA owners own the entity
If you are an owner of a registered investment adviser, you own an entity, its contracts, and its enterprise value. That is a genuine sale with genuine buyers — and a different set of regulatory mechanics, covered in depth on our sister resource for RIA principals.
The part nobody owns
Ownership here is really three separate things, and conflating them is where advisors get hurt. The records and the client data are the firm’s, almost without exception at an employee firm. The contractual relationship is the firm’s too — the client’s agreement is with the firm, not with you. But the client’s decision belongs to the client.
No firm owns a person. Clients can follow whoever they like, and that is precisely why non-solicits and the Protocol exist at all: a firm cannot stop a client from leaving, so it restricts the advisor from asking. The gap between “you may not solicit” and “they may not find you” is where the practical outcome actually lives.
Which means the relationship you spent a career building is not confiscatable. It is simply not, on its own, a transferable asset. Whatever your agreement says about records and contracts, the decision at the other end was never the firm’s to give away — and it is not yours to sell either. It is the one part of this that stays with the person who made it.
How to find out in an afternoon
Pull your employment or rep agreement, your firm’s policy on client information, and any recruiting or retention-bonus paperwork with clawback language. Read the definitions section first; it usually resolves the question in one paragraph.
Not legal advice. Employment agreements, non-solicits and their enforceability turn on your specific contract and state. Take yours to an employment or securities lawyer before you act.
Who Owns My Book of Business is an authorized lead-generation partner of buyAUM. buyAUM compensates us only if a transition is completed. Sellers are never charged a fee at any stage. Nothing on this site is legal, tax, or compliance advice.