sidebar

Connect: 319-210-7700

Connect: 319-210-7700

Articles Written by Jon Henschen

Maybe the Workplace Needs Political Neutrality

14:21 27 February in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

February 23, 2023 By Jon Henschen, American Thinker As I perused a list of rules the British Royal Family must follow, one rule in particular jumped out at me.  The Royals cannot express any political opinions.  They cannot vote.  They can't even speak publicly about politics or run for political office of any kind. With companies around the country increasingly perpetuating political stances, I thought of how appropriate it would be for companies to take a similar stance to the Royals, by not taking political sides. A political side we see being heavily pushed at companies is neither Democrat nor Republican, but rather Marxist.  The teachings by Frankfurt School academics have evolved into Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, and a variety of other academic theories.  These theories are disseminated through what you may be more familiar with in...

Wealth Management logo

The Threat to LBO Private Equity-Backed IBD’s

14:06 16 December in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

December 13, 2022 By Jon Henschen, WealthManagement.com   Managers of debt-heavy IBDs backed by LBO private equity will need all the skills they can muster to thread the needle of falling revenues and desired growth. Exit strategies may have to wait. While readily working with standard private equity firms focused on growth capital, we made the decision over a year ago to not work with those private investment firms that rely on high levels of debt on the part of portfolio companies to goose returns—namely, leveraged buyout private equity fund managers. In anticipation of difficult markets, we focused on lower debt-to-net capital ratios, while avoiding broker/dealers whose ratios started to push to four times or higher. Similar issues arise with leveraged buyout funds. Debt-to-equity ratios of LBO-backed firms can run up to two times higher than...

ThinkAdvisor logo

BD Deals: When Do Advisors Win, Lose?

23:36 03 November in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

November 2, 2022 By Jon Henschen, ThinkAdvisor  When one broker-dealer is bought by another, advisors at the acquired firm hope for the best but wait for what will change. The acquiring broker-dealer will most always start off with a statement such as, “Everything will stay the same.” This may be the case for a month or two; over time, though, this statement often proves to be untrue. The size of the firm being sold and the size of the acquiring firm can make a big difference in the retention of advisors over the first two years. Potential points of conflict tend to be service, compliance and culture misalignment. Why BD Size Matters Here are the main merger scenarios and their likely outcomes: Small BD being sold to another small BD: very favorable to advisors/high retention; ...