Charles Schwab today said it formed a new business unit to serve independent investment advisors, corporate benefit plan sponsors and third-party retirement plan record keepers. As part of the organizational shake up, the man who ran Schwab's RIA business, Charles Goldman, left the company.
The new unit, Institutional Services, combines Schwab's former Institutional and Corporate & Retirement Services operations.
Institutional Services will be led by Schwab senior executive Jim McCool, a 13-year company veteran. McCool joined Schwab in 1995 and held various posts within Schwab Institutional until 2004. Since then, he has been a corporate executive vice president and oversaw Schwab Corporate & Retirement Services. He's been on the company's executive management committee since 2005.
In terms of assets, Goldman's RIA division has $542 billion versus $211 billion for McCool's corporate retirement plan unit. Yet it's Goldman who's the odd man out. "He's leaving because we've taken two divisions and combined them into one," says Lindsay Tiles, spokesperson at San Francisco-based Schwab. "Goldman's position was eliminated."
Tiles says the management change is less about Goldman's performance and more about giving the job to McCool based on his experience and where the advisory business going. She says McCool's unit has had a focus on third-party administrators, and Schwab is seeing a lot more overlap between RIAs and third-party administrators as greater numbers of advisors enter that space.
Tiles says combining the two business units will boost Schwab's efficiency.