Consolidation: Does big equal bad in the advice sector?

The word consolidator tends to spark one of two gut reactions in our industry. There are those who would argue bigger automatically means better when it comes to consolidation, while others will immediately assume that ‘big equals bad' and want to run for the hills whenever consolidation gets mentioned. At risk of making myself unpopular on both sides, I'm going to stick my neck out by arguing that neither is right. There's a tendency for debates both in financial services and the wider world to become increasingly polarised with overly entrenched views on either side. But as is...