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Author: rafferty

IBDs Navigate The Pandemic

15:35 13 April in In the News by rafferty

April 1, 2021 By Eric Rasmussen, FinancialAdvisor The Covid-19 pandemic frayed the social and economic bonds that the world takes for granted, shone a light on vast inequality, revealed who had the resources to carry economic burdens and who were the most vulnerable to depredation. And that’s just the independent broker-dealers (IBDs). Here, as in many areas, the virus exacerbated trends already in place—it gave a boost to big firms already armed with resources, that were diversified enough to shelter precarious income streams, and that had the capital wall to withstand the onslaught of competition (and protect debt service). The pandemic also hastened the tech arms race among IBDs, since the hearts and minds of clients and rep recruits were now being won through the internet, not in hotel lobbies. Just as teachers had...

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Thomas H. Lee Partners Wants an Independent Broker/Dealer

17:23 07 April in In the News by rafferty

April 7, 2021 By Asia Martin, WealthManagement.com THL managing director Ganesh Rao said THL is looking to buy the "Hightower" of the independent broker/dealer space, but industry observers say it may be too late. Thomas H. Lee Partners, the Boston-based private equity firm with a majority ownership in RIA rollup Hightower Advisors, is also looking for an independent broker/dealer to invest in, says Ganesh Rao, managing director at TH. “I’ve been looking at IBDs for the last 10 years,” said Rao, who has been at THL for 21 years. “The premier firms I’m interested in I’ve been intimately getting to know for the last five years.” Without mentioning any names, Rao said he has eyed two firms that don’t yet have outside ownership. But the opportunity to close the deals has yet to present itself....

A Cult of Victimhood

22:14 31 March in Private by rafferty

March 31, 2021 By Jon Henschen, American Thinker Founded in 1923, the Frankfurt School, a philosophical and sociological movement with the aim of developing Marxist studies in Germany that operated out of Goethe University in Frankfurt. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, the Frankfurt School relocated to Columbia University in New York City. The influence of the Frankfurt School has been far reaching, with Critical Theory their primary focus, which has a preoccupation for critiquing modernity and capitalist society. Unable to attract converts to communism due to capitalism’s abundant material wealth, the cultural Marxism of Critical Theory perpetuates discontent by dividing people by race, sex, and class with individuals falling into either oppressed or oppressor roles. Students of the movement became the New Left radicals of the 1960s, led by the Students for...