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Content tagged "Focus Financial"

Focus Financial Partners, LLC

Filed under: Consolidator/Roll-up Firm
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Rudy Adolf: We have more capital than anyone else in the (advisory-buying) industry.

Focus Financial gains access to 'huge money' -- $320 million in credit
The capital hoard positions the big aggregator to double its advised assets, one observer says

Wednesday 2.1.12
Garry Taylor says he likes the Focus model better because advisory firms get to keep their identity.

Second ex-Fidelity exec in a year nabbed by Focus Financial
Garry Taylor's hire comes as Focus shifts it emphasis from acquiring existing RIAs to luring breakaway brokers

Friday 1.20.12
Peter Hess drove the Advent-Black Diamond merger and may have created an RIA-friendly monster.

The 10 most influential figures in the RIA business going into 2012, Part 2
These advisors and executives made dramatic moves that advanced the business of registered investment advisors

Wednesday 1.4.12
Dina Hampton: Social media brought me good tidings in 2011.

An East Coast editor travels to the Bay Area to see the RIABiz team in action
In which your correspondent sees the day-to-day operations of RIABiz, not to mention a coyote

Thursday 12.29.11
David Selig: I’ve had numerous confidential conversations with other large RIAs who are considering buying themselves back from holding companies.

RIAs reveal their M&A war stories with 200 Schwab IMPACT attendees
Panelists discuss pitfalls to avoid if you're thinking of selling your RIA

Monday 11.7.11
Lori Van Dusen has been thinking about starting an RIA for 20 years but the 'pieces' couldn't be assembled to her liking, until now.

Dynasty Financial wins the account of Lori Van Dusen's new RIA through Focus Financial
The arrangement holds the possibility of a symbiotic advisor-vendor relationship between the wealth management platform and the big aggregator

Tuesday 10.18.11
Felipe Luna: While the wirehouse model certainly has its detractors the one thing it does really well is it support the advisor on client-based activities and that's why they're so much more productive. That's the crux of our model.

CONCERT Wealth Management nabbed 12 wirehouse teams in the last 12 months and this wirehouse-lite is just getting started
The San Jose-based firm targets advisors with as little as $100 million and it doubled in size in the last year

Tuesday 9.27.11
Michael Nathanson: If there is no IPO, we'd still be comfortable holding shares.

A look inside Focus Financial's big deal with The Colony Group
The Boston RIA put the big New York aggregator under a microscope and used high-end lawyers and investment bankers for added vetting

Friday 9.23.11
Mike Papedis: HighTower has had five 'eighth-inning' conversation in the last two weeks with with wirehouse teams with a combined $9 billion of assets.

Three telling conversations about where the RIA business is headed
In which RIABiz editor Brooke Southall talks with a recent widow in search of an advisor, the recruiting director of HighTower and the CEO of Focus Financial and gains a snapshot of the RIA arena, circa summer 2011

Thursday 7.14.11
Mark Tibergien: My goal is to upset you.

Tibergien uses brutal honesty to captivate big Schwab RIAs and others at San Francisco event
The Pershing leader and former Moss Adams star lit into advisors on practice management issues

Friday 6.24.11
Rich Gill: You may be biting off more than you can chew - or are willing to chew.

Purchasing too much technology has its own dangers for RIAs
The more sophisticated the system you buy, the more commitment and expertise it will require

Tuesday 5.24.11
Rudy Adolf: “This is an area we wanted to invest in and we wanted to add additional resources. The thing we’ve figured out better than anyone else is how to invest in entrepreneurs.”

Focus Financial pivots to breakaway strategy with Fidelity recruit
Mark Dupont will put a new spin on the big aggregator but entrepreneurial bent remains

Monday 5.9.11
Shirl Penney: We all believe this is a unique time for a mature industry.

RIABiz goes to New York in search of RIA life in the land of investment banking giants
The ambitions of Dynasty Financial's Shirl Penney and Focus Financial's Rudy Adolf match the city's scale

Thursday 3.24.11
Chip Roame: This round of financial advisor aggregators is far better capitalized, and has far deeper management teams – and boards of directors.

This generation of advisor aggregators puts the roll-up ghosts to bed, for now
Questions linger about what some firms will look like post-IPO or merger

Thursday 2.3.11
Brian Hamburger: The SEC is lining up the facts so that later the conclusion becomes obvious (it can’t regulate advisors with current resources). ... It’s genius, what they’re looking to do, but it’s incredibly transparent.

The RIABiz list of winners and losers in the wake of the SEC's fiduciary study
The race is on as laggards adapt to new vision of the future

Friday 1.28.11
Rudy Adolf: We have plenty of capital and a $40 billion business has a very good cash flow.

After one-year hiatus, Focus Financial buys a large RIA and hits a milestone
The deal brings it to $40 billion as the company makes a big Midwest push

Wednesday 1.12.11
John Carnevale: This makes us an 800-pound gorilla for what we do.

Geller Group finds its white knight within the Focus Financial family
The DOL investigation goes on but -- undeterred -- a Massachusetts company takes the TPA under its wing

Thursday 11.4.10
Dick Smith: SEI’s gone through a lot of iterations and they made special considerations for us. Yet, still, you’re constrained by the standardization they employ.

Unravelling why a big, loyal SEI advisor moved its assets to Schwab
In automating wealth management, Dick Smith chose Adhesion and needed custody

Monday 9.27.10
Joe Duran: We’ll be a $100-million revenue RIA in two to three years.

One of a new breed of roll-ups taking center stage, United Capital is churning out deals again
After a broken engagement slowed its progress, the company is on a buying spree

Monday 9.20.10
Marc Channick: Any of the three of us could have turned the other two in and tripled their book of business

A Harvard lawyer, a Columbia MBA and an engineer break away from AllianceBernstein private client unit to form an RIA
The San Diego-based advisors may be among the first to leave the company to turn independent

Wednesday 6.16.10
David Brochu says in an e-mailed letter: If Focus wants me to leave I will do so.

Brochu drops lawsuit against Focus Financial but $500,000 is still at issue
Rhode Island advisor backs off initial suit after getting most documents

Thursday 5.27.10
David Brochu: The statement that Focus obtained a restraining order against me is a gross mischaracterization of the circumstances.

[Updated] Focus Financial amended statement today to say it obtained restraining orders against David Brochu of StrategicPoint
Brochu says he is restraining himself without being ordered to do so by a judge

Thursday 5.13.10
What really happened with Charles Goldman leaving Schwab is finally coming out in a lawsuit

What the Charles Goldman and David Brochu lawsuits say about the RIA business
Good people and good companies sick lawyers on each other when so much happens so fast

Thursday 5.13.10
Readership on RIABiz has been surprisingly international

What do RIAs care about?
A breadcrumb path through RIABiz into the mind of financial services entrepreneurs

Wednesday 4.7.10
David Brochu: I am paying the price for asking questions.

[Updated] David Brochu finds his lawsuit against Focus Financial is a rough experience
The Rhode Island RIA keeps up the legal battle to clarify the size of his firm's equity stake

Tuesday 3.30.10
Joe Duran: Nobody thinks of Cisco as an acquiring company because they have one culture [and by following that example] that's how we end up with an arbitrage

The faces of United Capital on an idyllic spring day on the Berkeley campus
Photographs of United Capital partners and executives at the Haas School of Business event

Friday 2.26.10
Jessica Bibliowicz is taking big steps to keep her company out of the red

NFP found profitability but shed firms and office space last quarter
Big roll-up is using drastic measures to make ends meet

Wednesday 2.10.10
Frank Shull: Our pipeline is very full.

Focus Financial looks more like a consolidator-of-consolidators as its partner firms go on buying sprees
Lara, Shull pulls off five deals to nearly double its assets in a year

Tuesday 2.9.10
Bridgewater Wealth has long experience reining in athletes and their money

[UPDATED] Focus Financial breaks into the American sports world with its latest RIA deal
Bridgewater purchase gives New York roll-up specialized knowledge of managing sudden fortunes accumulated in sporting world

Wednesday 1.20.10
Malcolm Gladwell's insights on entrepreneurs in last week's New Yorker pertain to RIAs

What RIAs can learn from Malcolm Gladwell’s writings on entrepreneurs as risk averse
RIAs' success as entrepreneurs is in keeping with studies covered in a New Yorker article

Wednesday 1.20.10
Jim Pratt-Heaney:[Making acquisitions] would be very difficult [to do] on our own.

RIAs join Focus Financial with their own acquisition plans
Making purchases is much less scary with a big roll-up at your side

Wednesday 12.16.09
David Brochu's company's lawsuit alleges that Focus Financial is buying transaction-based practices in the NFP mold

StrategicPoint sues Focus Financial for information
RIA claims its holding company is acting too much like National Financial Partners for comfort

Thursday 12.3.09
Rudy Adolf: Some people just want to make a lot of noise

What's really going on with Focus Financial?
Somebody is going to be unhappy in a large organization, Adolf says

Monday 11.30.09
Like Tom Turkey, many RIAs were thankful to survive 2009

Taking A Break From the Turkey?
RIABiz's top 10 stories from the past month offer a window into what RIAs care about

Thursday 11.26.09
Doug Swope: There’s no independence per se [at a wirehouse]. You’re [restricted] by the [inventory of] products.

Independent-within-Smith Barney breaks away after hitting wall
Former Smith Barney peers light fuse for Swope independence

Wednesday 11.18.09
Ed Friedman: “We ask them, do you really need somebody just to get lunch and coffee?”

The seven things I learned from roll-up executives in Princeton, including not to call them that
Four CEOs of aggregators choose four different paths to growth

Tuesday 10.27.09
Brian Hamburger: “I’ve been critical of investment advisers. I don’t think they’ve taken advantage of this time [of upheaval].”

Merger and breakaway experts convene near Princeton at old Merrill Lynch lair
Attendees will shares notes on how to dismantle wirehouse salesforces

Thursday 10.22.09
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