In the News

Cetera CEO Valerie Brown Steps Down; Larry Roth to Run RCAP’s IBD Group

May 13, 2014
by Janet Levaux, ThinkAdvisor

Nicholas Schorsch and RCS Capital Corp. (RCAP) have reshuffled the leadership of the group’s advice platform and its roughly 9,000 independent reps.

Larry Roth, who moved to RCS from the AIG-owned Advisor Group less than a year ago, will now be CEO of its independent broker-dealer operations, RCAP said early Tuesday. The IBD business incudes First Allied Securities and the four Cetera Financial Group broker/dealers, which have already been bought, in addition to Investors Capital, Summit Brokerage Services and J.P. Turner & Co., which are in the process of being acquired by RCAP.

CEO Valerie Brown of Cetera Financial is leaving the company,

Sterne Agee Group in deal to acquire midsize independent broker-dealer WRP Investments

April 10, 2014

By Bruce Kelly, Investment News

Broker-dealer mergers and acquisitions continue to sizzle as Sterne Agee Group Inc. Thursday is expected to announce the purchase of a midsize independent broker-dealer, WRP Investments Inc.

David Pintaric, president and second-generation owner of WRP, confirmed the firm’s sale, terms of which haven’t been released, he said.

“This is a marriage made in heaven,” Mr. Pintaric said.

“Companies have been calling me for 11 years” to inquire about buying the firm, he said, but he waited until now.

WRP has 350 affiliated registered representatives and advisers, and produced $48 million in gross revenue last year, Mr. Pintaric said.

It is based in Youngstown,

Berthel Fisher has new lease on life

by Bruce Kelly

April 4, 2014,  Investment News

Since the credit crisis, the financial advice industry has been littered with the dead shells of independent broker-dealers that sold fraudulent private placements before the crash.

DeWaay Financial Network Inc., GunnAllen Financial Inc., QA3 Financial Corp. and dozens of others all ran short of capital in the wake of a cascade of investor litigation, stemming from the sale of the phony or suspect deals.

Indeed, 43 of the 92 broker-dealers that sold tenant-in-common exchanges – real estate deals known as TICs – sponsored by the defunct DBSI Inc. are no longer in business, according to an InvestmentNews analysis.

A staggering amount,