Advisor Group announced today that it is making organizational changes in the wake of its recent acquisition of Ladenburg Thalmann.
CEO Jamie Price said that as part of this reorganization, Investacorp, Securities Service Network (SSN) and KMS Financial Services will be integrated into Omaha, Neb.-based Securities America, the largest of the five, independent broker-dealers acquired in the Ladenburg deal in February.
In addition to Securities America, Triad Advisors will remain independent upon conclusion of the reorganization, which will be done in stages, beginning with Investacorp in mid-July, followed by SSN in mid-September and KMS in November, Price said.
He said the transition will cause minimal administrative burdens for the advisors. Also, Securities America already had been performing many of the operational functions, such as account openings for these companies. “So, it’s not a difficult transition,” he said.
“This was a culmination of a bunch of work being done over the last four months, to determine how we can deliver what has been the technology the staff and our advisors at Advisor Group has been able to enjoy in the last year and a half since we launched eQuipt,” Price said. The eQuipt for Financial Planning system is billed by the company as a tool to maximize access to comprehensive financial planning services as well as consulting solutions.
Price added that it was important to hasten the delivery of the product capabilities that Advisor Group has because “folks on the Ladenburg side have been clamoring for them.”
Price said he does not expect any further integration of broker-dealer and RIA member firms within the Advisor Group network as a result of the Ladenburg merger. “Getting the company laid out in the vision that we see, there is no other consolidations or changes internally,” he said.
Price said the Covid-19 pandemic has not been a significant disruption because there have not been any issues with the staff working from home.“[Because of] our technology and operations folks, we have performed extremely well as a company during this period.”
Price said keeping the Ladenburg firms separate from the four original Advisor Group firms – FSC Securities Corporation, Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial and Woodbury Financial Services – was a decision that was made from the outset for two reasons. First, he said, scale matters in the industry. “If you have the scale and capability to invest back in the business, not just the regulatory framework, which is changing rapidly with (Regulation Best Interest) and before that, the (U.S. Department of Labor's conflict of interest rules), you have to be able to have the capital and the capability to step on that,” he said.
Secondly, Price said it came down to "being able to actively bring personal value to the advisors where they feel like they have a personal voice and driving some of the decisions we make around product capabilities and technology."
Jim Nagengast, CEO of Securities America, said he looked forward to quickly providing the advisors with access to the full spectrum of technology, operations, practice management, marketing and compliance resources that exist throughout the Advisor Group network. “In many ways, this integration is the natural outgrowth of a strategy that has been underway for some years now, as the firms under Ladenburg’s ownership have worked increasingly closely together to harness the power of our own network,” he said in a prepared statement.
Advisor Group, the nation’s largest network of independent wealth management firms, serves about 11,300 financial professionals and oversees more than $450 billion in client assets.