BrightScope Announces Top 25 Baltimore Area-Based RIA Firms

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 25, 2014) - BrightScope (www.brightscope.com), a leading provider of independent financial information and investment research, today announced the Top 25 Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms in the Baltimore area, focused on individual money management, with the greatest amount of assets under management. This list is part of the series that BrightScope regularly issues to highlight data contained within its recently enhanced Advisor Pages™, a comprehensive directory of nearly 600,000 financial advisors that serves as a breakthrough way for people to discover, research, and select a financial advisor.

"Being able to easily conduct due diligence when considering an advisor is invaluable for investors, but obtaining reliable information on advisors has historically been a lengthy process," said Brooks Herman, Head of Data and Research at BrightScope. "We recently expanded Advisor Pages, allowing anyone to create a basic profile, providing the opportunity for advisors to increase their exposure through enhancements like SEO and offering even more ways to connect with potential clients."

By aggregating hard-to-discover but publicly available information on advisors, BrightScope has created a free, easy-to-use database that is searchable from multiple dimensions. BrightScope's Advisor Pages™, features the data most critical to investors tasked with making an informed decision on which financial professional best meets their needs, including location, qualifications, amount and types of assets under management, area of specialty, legal disputes, formal complaints and more.

Top 25 Baltimore area-based advisors by total assets under management:

Company - Total assets under management:

1. Brown Advisory LLC - $23.1B

2. Legg Mason Investment Counsel, LLC - $7.3B

3. Dent D F & Co Inc. - $3.5B

4. WMS Partners, LLC - $2.2B

5. PSA Financial Advisors Inc. - $2.1B

6. Investment Counselors of Maryland - $2.1B

7. Corbyn Investment Management Inc. - $1B

8. Pinnacle Advisory Group, Inc. - $1B

9. Maryland Capital Management, LLC - $954.7M

10. Croft Leominster Inc. - $936.9M

11. Retirement Management Systems, Inc. - $892M

12. Strategic Wealth Management Group, LLC - $840.7M

13. Hardesty Capital Management Corp. - $746M

14. Greenspring Wealth Management, Inc. - $623.7M

15. Biegel & Waller LLC - $452.6M

16. Horan Capital Management, LLC - $446.8M

17. Planning Solutions Group, LLC - $414.4M

18. Baltimore-Washington Financial Advisors - $351.2M

19. Cornerstone Advisory LLP - $337.9M

20. Wagner Bowman Management Corp - $336.4M

21. The Cavanaugh Group Inc. - $336.4M

22. Financial Advantage Inc. - $330.2M

23. Calvert Investment Counsel - $325.9M

24. Financial Consulate - $311M

25. Harvest Investment Consultants LLC - $298.1M

BrightScope obtains its data directly from publicly available sources, including required regulatory filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial advisors can augment these primary sources by claiming their BrightScope Advisor Page™. By analyzing and interpreting this data, BrightScope now provides unparalleled insight into the financial management industry.

For more information about BrightScope Advisor Pages™ or to find information on a financial advisor, please visit http://www.brightscope.com/financial-planning/find/advisor/.

About BrightScope
BrightScope is a financial information company that brings transparency to opaque markets through independent research and analysis. Delivered through web-based software, BrightScope data drives better decision-making for individual investors, corporate plan sponsors, asset managers, broker-dealers, and financial advisors. The BrightScope Rating™, developed in partnership with leading independent 401k fiduciaries, reviews more than 200 unique data inputs per plan and calculates a single numerical score which defines plan quality at the company level. In April 2011, the company launched BrightScope Advisor Pages™, the first comprehensive and publicly available directory of financial advisors designed to help consumers discover information and conduct due diligence on wealth management professionals. BrightScope also markets a suite of data analytics software products to Fortune 1000 companies, asset managers, broker-dealers, financial advisors, and other market participants. Public ratings for nearly 50,000 retirement plans as well as rating definitions, criteria and methodologies, and information on nearly 600,000 financial advisors and nearly 40,000 advisory firms are available for free at www.brightscope.com.