RCS Capital Corp. (RCAP) is dumping its troubled wholesale product-distribution business.
In addition, the company will also be replacing both its chief executive and chief financial officer, RCAP said Thursday.
The changes are part of a plan to refocus the firm on its retail brokerage business, which is led by Larry Roth, chief executive of Cetera Financial Group.
The wholesale unit, which distributes non-traded REITs and other products, is being sold to Apollo Global Management LLC, the private equity firm run by Leon Black, for $25 million in cash.
RCAP is keeping its investment banking business and an investment management unit that includes the Hatteras Funds.
The transaction is expected to close this year.
RCAP said it has initiated a search for a new chief executive officer to replace current chief Michael Weil, and a new chief financial officer to replace Brian Jones.
Both Weil and Jones will remain in their current roles until replacements have been found. Jones will then run RCAP’s investment banking business. On a conference call Thursday, there was no word on what Weil’s future plans might be.
As part of the transaction, Apollo and another investor in RCAP, Luxor Capital Group, have agreed to invest an additional $37.5 million into the company.
Marc Rowan, Apollo co-founder, and Anthony Civale, chief operating officer of Apollo Credit, will join RCAP’s board of directors.
The deal comes as the wholesale distribution business continues to suffer from declining sales of direct participation programs (DPPs).
After RCAP purchased Cetera Financial Group early last year, an accounting scandal erupted at American Realty Capital Securities which, like RCAP, is controlled by real estate mogul Nicholas Schorsch.
As a result, many broker-dealers suspended sales agreements with RCAP’s wholesale unit.
Schorsch later ended his association with the firms but he remains a controlling shareholder.
The sale of the wholesale business “streamlines” the company and “increases our focus” on retail, Roth said on the call. “The retail business is alive and well and healthy,” he added, other than an unexpected slowdown in sales of DPPS.