Cetera CEO Antoniades: 'I'm not going anywhere'

In response to a story in an industry publication this week reporting he was likely to depart by year-end, Adam Antoniades, CEO of Cetera Financial Group, Wednesday afternoon made clear to InvestmentNews that he wasn't about to exit the firm, where he has worked in senior management since 2014.

"I'm not leaving," said Antoniades, who was promoted to CEO from president in 2019. "I’m not going anywhere. In fact, we’re going to be hiring a bunch of other really talented people."

WealthManagement.com published the report Wednesday.

The article said that with former Fidelity Investments executive Mike Durbin having been hired in May as CEO of Cetera Holdings, it would only be a matter of six to nine months before he takes over the leadership reins of the broker-dealer network, Antoniades' current domain.

Cetera Financial Group, with 8,000 financial advisors and $365 billion in client assets, is owned by private equity manager Genstar Capital, which bought the giant broker-dealer network in 2018. According to the report, Genstar is looking to recapitalize its investment in Cetera and could move the company from one of its funds to another, providing some liquidity for investors.

Industry executives who asked not to be named confirmed Thursday that Genstar is seeking to recapitalize Cetera.

Financial advisors like Antoniades and he's known as an extremely hard worker, industry executives noted. But some also wondered about the logic of Cetera having two CEOs, with Durbin at the holding company and Antoniades at the broker-dealer network, although no one interviewed for this article had firsthand or direct knowledge of Antoniades' imminent departure.

"Everything I’ve heard is, it doesn’t make sense to have two CEOs, especially with a guy like Mike Durbin," said one industry executive, who asked not to be named. "I don’t know anything for certain, but there’s an assumption that Durbin is a very serious guy and he wouldn’t have taken the job if he wasn’t going to be the CEO of everything."

In the interview, Antoniades said that Cetera's recent acquisition of Securian Financial Group, which includes more than 1,000 advisors who oversee $24.8 billion in assets under management and $47.4 billion in assets under administration, has been a "screaming success."

He added that almost 94% of Securian's advisors are moving to Cetera, while this year's market rally, with the S&P 500 up almost 15% year to date, has only helped boost the assets that are also moving to the firm.

"Mike Durbin is a best-in-class, franchise player," Antoniades said. "I was elated to have him [as] part of the team, but you’ll see, we’ll get into different markets. The guy is my boss, but nothing has changed."