Forbes suspends its adviser rankings: the business of being ranked
Forbes suspended its adviser rankings over an undisclosed $6m payment. How ranking businesses earn, and how much trust wealthy families should place in them.
On 25 August 2026, Forbes and SHOOK Research suspended their wealth adviser rankings and the events built around them for the rest of the year, according to WealthManagement.com. The lists — Top Wealth Advisors, Best-in-State, Top Women Advisors and their siblings — have been fixtures of American wealth management for a decade. They are to relaunch in 2027 under a new brand.
The immediate cause was two weeks old. On 12 August, the New York Times revealed that Forbes had dismissed its chief content officer, Randall Lane, over an undisclosed $6 million personal payment from R.J. Shook, the founder of the research firm that compiles those rankings. Morgan Stanley suspended its participation within days, AdvisorHub reported, and Wells Fargo Advisors also stepped away, according to RIABiz. When two of the largest firms on your list no longer want to be on it, there is no list.
Awards and rankings sit on nearly every private wealth website: top-100 lists, “leading” this, “recommended” that. The Forbes episode puts a blunt question to the people those badges are meant to persuade. If the most established adviser ranking in the world could collapse in a fortnight, why should a wealthy family or individual place any trust in the rest? This research piece takes that question seriously. It traces how the ranking economy is financed on both sides of the Atlantic, including the publications this Almanac itself draws on, and ends with what a family can still safely read in a list once it knows who pays for it.
Six million dollars, disclosed by nobody
The facts, as reported and largely admitted by the participants, are these. Shook’s firm built the rankings; Lane, as Forbes’ top editor, presided over the pages they appeared on. In 2025, SHOOK Research sold a majority stake to the private equity firm PPC Enterprises, per BusinessWire. Around that sale, Shook paid Lane $6 million. Neither man told Forbes.
Both have since conceded the point. “I should have disclosed the gift, and failing to was a serious error in judgment,” Lane said, per AdvisorHub. Shook told the Daily Beast the payment recognised Lane’s “services and guidance” around the sale, adding: “ultimately the payment was a mistake.”
The defences deserve equal space. Forbes said its investigation found “no evidence that the integrity of the rankings or editorial integrity was ever compromised”, per WealthManagement.com. SHOOK’s chief executive, Molly Bennard, said the money was a personal gift rather than company funds, and that outside counsel found no link between the payment and the rankings process, per the same report. No regulator has alleged that any adviser’s position on any list was bought.
That is what makes the case instructive. Nothing needed to be bought. The problem was structural, and the structure is not unique to Forbes.
How a ranking earns its keep
SHOOK’s own methodology page states that it “does not receive a fee in exchange for rankings” and is funded “through conferences, publications and research partners”. Both halves of that sentence are true, and the second half is where the business lives.
Once an adviser is ranked, the monetisation begins. Forbes’ own licensing store sells the award logo licence at $2,500 for twelve months, for use on the adviser’s own channels. Plaques and article reprints are sold through a dedicated Forbes/SHOOK licensing programme. Ranked firms’ regulatory disclosures spell out the arrangement: advisers pay “an annual licensing fee in exchange for the right to use Forbes rankings and logos” while “Forbes and SHOOK do not receive a fee… in exchange for rankings”, as one adviser’s published disclosure puts it. Add sponsored summits and conferences, and the result is a research operation whose revenue comes substantially from the people it ranks — just never, formally, for the ranking itself.
InvestmentNews described the model without ceremony when the suspension was announced: rankings “generate marketing revenue for cash-strapped publications”. Ross Gerber, a ranked adviser himself, put it from the other side, per WealthManagement.com: “The minute they offer you awards, you get four calls from the people selling you plaques.”
American regulators have long treated this as normal, anticipated practice. The SEC’s Marketing Rule permits advisers to advertise third-party ratings only with clear disclosures — including, “if applicable, that compensation has been provided directly or indirectly by the adviser in connection with obtaining or using the third-party rating”. A rule does not require a disclosure for something that never happens. In September 2024 the SEC charged nine advisers in a sweep that included unsubstantiated award claims, with $1.24 million in combined penalties.
The same machinery, in British accents
The UK and European private client world runs on directories and awards too, and several of the publications concerned — Spear’s, Citywealth, Legal 500, Chambers, eprivateclient — are sources this Almanac draws on. Their business models deserve the same plain description, from their own published pages.
None of them sells inclusion. Chambers states that submitting is free and its chief executive has said payment “categorically” does not improve a ranking, per Bloomberg Law. Legal 500 says firms appear in its editorial sections free of charge. Spear’s states that it is not possible to buy one’s way into the Spear’s 500. eprivateclient’s 50 Most Influential takes open nominations with no fee mentioned.
What each sells sits around the ranking, at varying distances from it.
Chambers, bought by the Boston private equity firm Abry Partners for around £400 million in 2023, sells profile platforms, plaques and “in-depth overviews” positioned “directly alongside ranking tables”, per its own sales page. Bloomberg Law put the price of a US website profile at £8,795 in 2024, roughly double its 2018 level, with one large firm quoted over $30,000; PM Forum, the legal marketing body, reported post-buyout increases of ten to twenty per cent and law firm directory budgets reaching five and six figures. A former Chambers global editor, Lloyd Pearson, told Bloomberg Law: “Private equity investors don’t do this for fun.”
Legal 500’s editorial ranking is free, but according to the legal marketing consultancy Nonbillable, ranked firms that decline to pay for a profile appear “in much softer grey in the rankings”, harder for a reader to spot. The ranking is not for sale; its legibility, in practice, partly is.
Spear’s sells enhanced profiles whose “Adviser Profile” section, in its own words, “is provided by the adviser and/or their firm”, and its research guidelines note that “sponsored firms can choose to include select client feedback as part of their profile package”. Its 2024 media kit goes further, offering “Index Exclusive Partner” packages that include “the ‘in association with’ naming rights” for a ranking index — the index itself carrying a sponsor’s logo.
Citywealth is the most explicit. A basic Leaders List entry is free, but its own upgrade page states: “Upgraded profiles get a higher ranking on our site.” The tiers are priced on its online shop — from £475 for a photograph to £1,460 for a gold profile and £7,500 for a corporate bundle — alongside the awards side of the business: a £325 “complete submission” fee that puts a fuller case before the Magic Circle Awards judges, gala tables at £7,450, and a £1,350 winner’s pack.
The awards circuit repeats the Forbes pattern with smaller numbers, and occasionally with franker wording. The WealthBriefing and Family Wealth Report awards state there is no upfront cost to enter, “but you will be offered the chance to purchase a winner’s marketing package should you be successful”. The Family Wealth Report awards page goes further: “whilst the judging process is completely independent of the commercial arrangements between the participants and the organizers it is expected that finalists have a financial obligation to work with the organizers to promote their award(s)”. Read together, the two sentences describe an award that is free to enter but not free to have won: a place on the shortlist arrives with an expected financial commitment to the organiser, whatever the independence of the judging. Euromoney charges no fee to participate or win; J.P. Morgan’s own award disclosures record a “fee paid to rating provider for advertising materials after rating announced” for both Euromoney and the FT’s PWM awards. Free to win; paid to celebrate.
There is a cleaner model, though it is rare. Germany’s FUCHS | RICHTER Prüfinstanz tests private banks through mystery shopping that providers “can neither commission nor cancel”, and funds itself by selling the results to readers. At the other end sits the vanity trade: in 2018 RollOnFriday invented a law firm whose managing partner’s photograph was the actor Danny Glover, and watched it win “Film Financing Law Firm of the Year in Nigeria” from two awards businesses, one of which offered its profile package for £100 after haggling.
The market at a glance
The table below condenses the research behind this piece. The second column reports each publisher’s own stated policy; the third is what the same publisher offers for money. The final column records doubts voiced in public — in the trade press, by legal marketing professionals and on practitioner forums. Where our research located none, the cell says so plainly: an empty column is a finding too. Every figure and quotation is sourced in the sections above or linked in the cell.
| Publication | Payment for inclusion or to win? | What the publisher sells to the ranked | Doubts voiced in public |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forbes / SHOOK rankings (US) | No fee stated | Logo licences at $2,500 a year, plaques, reprints, sponsored summits | Independence questioned in the trade press after the $6m revelation; Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo withdrew; the model described as “rented credibility” |
| Barron’s rankings (US) | No fee stated | Annual licences for rankings and logos, plaques, reprints | Swept into the August 2026 debate on ranking credibility; nothing specific to Barron’s located |
| Chambers | No — submitting is free | Profiles (£8,795 to over $30,000), plaques, overviews placed alongside ranking tables | Law firm marketers report a fading line between research and payment and “car showroom” sales tactics; anonymous forum scepticism about how rankings are cultivated |
| Legal 500 | No — editorial listing is free | Paid profiles; non-paying ranked firms reported to display “in much softer grey” | 2020 press report of staff furloughed while weekly sales topped £300,000; consultants note non-payers are harder to spot |
| Spear’s 500 | No — “not possible to buy one’s way in” | Enhanced profiles with adviser-supplied content; index sponsorship with naming rights | None located in this research |
| Citywealth Leaders List | No — basic entry is free | Profile tiers £475–£1,460; “Upgraded profiles get a higher ranking on our site” | None located in this research |
| Citywealth Magic Circle Awards | Partly — free express entry, or £325 “complete submission” before judging | Gala tables to £7,450, winner’s pack £1,350, programme adverts | None located in this research |
| eprivateclient / PAM Insight | No fee mentioned | Subscriptions; the rankings themselves carry corporate sponsors | None located; commercial terms are unpublished |
| WealthBriefing / Family Wealth Report Awards | ”No upfront cost to enter” — but finalists are “expected” to have a “financial obligation” to the organiser | Winner’s marketing packages, gala tables, sponsorship | Its own US awards page pairs free entry with an expected “financial obligation” on finalists; a 2018 survey found 58% of Asian wealth managers viewed industry awards as money-making exercises |
| Euromoney and FT/PWM awards | No — “no fee to participate” | Post-win advertising materials, disclosed as paid by winners | None located in this research |
| Fuchsbriefe (Germany) | No — providers cannot pay at all | Nothing to the ranked; reports sold to readers | None located; cited across this research as the counter-model |
Where the line sits
Reduced to its economics, the market sorts into four models. Reader-funded testing, where the ranked cannot pay at all. Free-to-rank editorial lists monetised afterwards through licences, profiles and events, which is the dominant model, used by Forbes and Chambers alike. Lists where payment buys prominence within the product itself, as Citywealth’s upgrade page describes. And awards that exist to be sold.
The academic literature explains why the distinction matters more to the publisher than it may appear. Economists Bruno Frey and Jana Gallus, in Towards an Economics of Awards, observe that an award “only becomes and remains valuable if it enjoys high prestige”. Recognition is an asset that monetisation slowly consumes. A 2018 Hubbis survey of Asian wealth managers found 58 per cent regarded industry awards as money-making exercises rather than genuine recognition. The Forbes suspension is what it looks like when the consumption completes: the moment the audience stopped believing the ranking was worth more than its licence fee, the firms being ranked left, and the asset was withdrawn from the market.
It bears repeating that no evidence has emerged, anywhere in this research, of a specific award or ranking position being bought at any of the publications named above. The documented story is one of structural proximity between research and revenue, and of one undisclosed payment that turned proximity into collapse.
So why place any trust in them?
Start with the uncomfortable version. A ranking financed by the people it ranks is a marketing product with editorial input, not an audit. The Forbes episode shows that even the reputable end of the market can fail invisibly, at the very top, for years: no badge on any adviser’s website could have told a family about a payment nobody had disclosed. A family that treats an award as proof of quality is placing its trust in a business model it has probably never examined.
The lists still carry information; the discipline is to read them the way the industry itself does. The interviews behind a Chambers or Spear’s entry are real research, and peer recognition does surface capable advisers. What a reader must separate is the research from the retail: an entry may be earned while the enhanced profile around it, the logo beneath the adviser’s name and the table at the front of the gala are all invoices.
Three questions, put directly to an adviser, extract most of the truth. Did you pay anything before the judging? Do you pay to display this badge? Does payment change how visibly you appear? American advisers are now obliged by the SEC to answer the substance of these in writing; an adviser in London, Geneva or Zurich can simply be asked at the first meeting. The reaction to the question is itself information.
And no single list deserves a family’s trust on its own — including any single list this Almanac cites. Recognition that recurs across several publications with different owners, different methods and different revenue models is far harder for any one business model to manufacture, which is why cross-listing, rather than any individual badge, is the signal this directory is built on. The Almanac’s own answer to the question in the title of this section is that rankings are evidence, never verdicts: listing here is free, placement is not for sale, and this piece names the publications we ourselves rely on precisely so that readers can weigh them as we do.
Sources: WealthManagement.com; New York Times; AdvisorHub; RIABiz; ThinkAdvisor; Daily Beast; InvestmentNews; BusinessWire; SHOOK Research; Forbes licensing store; SEC; Bloomberg Law; PM Forum; Chambers; Legal 500; Nonbillable; RollOnFriday; Spear’s; Citywealth; ClearView Publishing; Family Wealth Report Awards; Euromoney; J.P. Morgan; Fuchsbriefe; Frey & Gallus; Hubbis.