Another summer rebrand: CI Private Wealth is now Corient

CI Financial CEO Kurt MacAlpine

'It's a weird little portmanteau,' one marketing executive said.

The summer of wealth management name changes rolls on as CI Private Wealth, one of the fastest-growing registered investment advisors ever to compete in the financial advice industry, Tuesday morning said it was rebranding as Corient, a combination, according to the company, of the phrase “client oriented.”

Picking a new name for a well-known, established firm seems to be in vogue this year.

In May, Riskalyze announced that its new name was Nitrogen to reflect the company’s evolution from measuring client risk tolerance toward offering a broader suite of wealth management fintech.

And in June, Advisor Group, the giant network of 11,000 brokers and financial advisors, with $500 billion in client assets and eight distinct firms, said it would operate under one brand and service platform: Osaic.

Based In Canada, CI is a relative newcomer to the U.S. wealth management and RIA market, first entering the U.S. RIA industry in 2020. Ever since, it’s been on an acquisition binge that has startled some RIA veterans. Its wealth management business in the United States has $147 billion in assets under management.

And the company has been experiencing some changes. When CI Financial in May announced the sale of a 20% private ownership stake in CI Private Wealth, it also said its plans for an initial public offering of that business, now Corient, was still in the works but had been postponed.

CI will continue to use the CI Private Wealth brand for its Canadian ultra-high-net-worth wealth management business, the company said in a statement.

Reaction from branding and marketing executives to CI’s name change to Corient was mixed.

“It’s a weird little portmanteau,” said Johnny Sandquist, founder and CEO of Three Crowns Copywriting and Marketing. “Corient. I understand the thought behind it.”

“It probably sounds great in the boardroom and the firm needs to get executive leadership behind it,” Sandquist said. “But it may be a bit confusing externally.”

“Firms rebrand when they realize the message they want to get across is not getting received,” he said. “You saw that with Riskalyze. It’s hard to get a new message across about a company with an old name. The rebrand is a chance to reset and change the narrative.”

Marie Swift, president and CEO of Impact Communications, said all three firms are “rebranding because the value proposition for each firm has slightly changed.

“Riskalyze wanted to get away from its old value proposition of focusing on risk and show they can ignite growth at firms,” Swift said. “So they picked Nitrogen, which got a thumbs-up from me.

“And it’s the same reason with CI, which is making a bigger foray into U.S. wealth market,” she said. “The company wanted something more memorable. The new name means client-oriented. And it’s much easier for people to remember. Any name with initials makes it tough to remember what it stands for.”

Kurt MacAlpine, CEO of Corient and CI Financial Corp., said in a statement: “The unified Corient brand clarifies for clients that they benefit from the expertise of our entire network and the expanded services and capabilities made possible by our greater size and scale.”