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Eyes on Kestra: IBDs Are Still in High Demand

17:41 19 December in In the News by rafferty

December 18, 2018 By Diana Britton, WealthManagement   Stone Point may be looking to get out of the IBD business, but there’s still an appetite for such firms, even as the stock market suffers. Private equity firm Stone Point Capital is reportedly looking to offload Kestra Financial, the Austin-based independent broker/dealer it purchased less than three years ago. And while we may be headed for a bear market in stocks, it’s still a bull market for IBDs, industry observers say, especially for firms like Kestra. A couple years ago, there was a lot of noise around diminished demand for independent broker/dealers, especially as the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule was set to take effect. Now that there’s less regulatory uncertainty, firms are focusing more on the future, with a bullish view. “Contrary to speculation a number...

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Kestra BD Sale: Now or Never?

18:03 18 December in In the News by rafferty

December 17, 2018 By Janet Levaux, ThinkAdvisor   It’s turning out to be a nasty season for sales of equities. But how about broker-dealers? Industry watchers have varying takes on how they see the market for broker-dealers playing out for potential sellers in late 2018 and early 2019. But they agree that the private equity owner of Kestra Financial  — Stone Pointe Capital — is smart to be making a move now. “Stone Pointe … bought it, rebranded it and did great work dressing it up for another sale,” said Tim Welsh, head of the consultancy Nexus Strategy, in an interview. “It looks like the end of the bull market, so if you are gonna sell a financial company, you’ve got to do it now.” A downturn in the stock market, Welsh says, “means valuations are going...

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Kestra CEO James Poer wants to set the record straight on private equity

19:13 01 December in In the News by rafferty

November 19, 2018 By Tobias Salinger, Financial Planning The wealth management industry has a misunderstanding about private equity, according to Kestra Financial CEO James Poer. “Private equity’s not evil. Private equity’s just an investor,” he said in an hour-long interview at the Stone Point Capital-backed independent broker-dealer’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. “It’s that simple.” Poer bristles at suggestions that PE ownership acts as a downside for the 2,300 advisors at Kestra and subsidiaries Kestra Private Wealth Services and H. Beck. He also takes exception with the notion that the firm has not been active in acquisitions this year or that it should be recruiting new advisors en masse. However, some of the firm’s rivals have been boosting their advisory ranks through recruiting and acquisitions. In one of its recent recruiting campaigns, LPL Financial called PE owners...