Cetera Financial Group is finally free.
Cetera, an El Segundo, Calif.-based network of independent broker-dealers, announced Wednesday that it has emerged from the bankruptcy of RCS Capital.
Cetera will be the only operating business under its parent company, which will allow the company to focus on supporting its independent advisors with new tools and processes.
“We are now, thank goodness, a privately held, independent and well-positioned company,” says Cetera CEO Larry Roth. “The emergence has cleared the runway for us to execute on a lot of initiatives moving forward.”
In recent weeks, Cetera announced Robert Moore, former president of LPL Financial, as its new chairman, dividing the role from that of the chief executive officer. Moore’s appointment became effective with Wednesday’s announcement.
Roth will remain as Cetera’s CEO, and will be appointed to the parent company’s board.
Moore says that while his experience at LPL and his current role as CEO of Legal & General Investment Management America will inform his duties as Cetera’s chairman, Cetera will retain its own culture and identity.
“I have a longstanding belief about heightened levels of transparency and accountability,” Moore says. “The primary way a firm achieves that is by separating the CEO and chair roles. We want to be at the forefront of industry best practices starting with a higher standard of governance. I have no interest in molding Cetera into an LPL-like entity. Cetera has its own DNA and history and trajectory across the business, and I’m a supporter of those traits.”
Cetera also emerges with an additional $150 million in capital infused by its new equity owners. Roth says the funds will be used for investments in technology, advisor growth and “practice management service enhancements.”
Cetera Financial Group was strung together by Nicholas Schorsch, the real estate mogul who owned RCS Capital, in a series of acquisitions that began in 2013 but ended abruptly in 2014 when accounting irregularities surfaced at another Schorsch-controlled firm.