B. Riley Financial Inc., the investment bank that’s been struggling for the past year, continues to see financial advisors walk out the door to rivals.
Brian Todd Cohen on Nov. 18 jumped to Ceros Financial Services Inc., in Westbury, N.Y., according to his BrokerCheck profile.
And on November 14, Russ Zalatimo, head of HudsonPoint Capital and based in Jersey City, N.J., left B. Riley for Arete Wealth Management, also according to BrokerCheck. The firm, which has 11 registered reps and $200 million in assets, focuses on alternative investmetns.
It’s not clear the amount of assets Cohen controls.
A spokesperson for B. Riley did not return a phone call Wednesday to comment.
Arete's partnership with HudsonPoint "underscores our shared commitment to providing high-net-worth clients with access to alternative investment opportunites," said Joshua Rogers, founder and CEO of Arete Wealth, in a stateent.
Cohen could not reached Wednesday to comment.
They follow other financial advisors departing B. Riley, which in the past twelve months has seen its stock price fall and has shed businesses to raise cash.
Eric Lyon, a former senior managing director at B. Riley Wealth Management, jumped to Kestra Investment Services at the start of last month. According to Kestra, Lyon’s team, Wealth Empowerment Financial Strategies, had more than 30 advisors and staff and works with $1.4 billion in client assets.
And Philip Wunderlich, the scion of the founder of the former Wunderlich Securities, which B. Riley acquired in 2017, left the firm in September and joined Prospera Financial Services Inc.
This has occurred amid an SEC assessment of whether the firm correctly disclosed risks in some of its assets, and questions about its founder’s interactions with Brian Kahn, the former CEO of Franchise Group Inc., who stepped down in January after Riley participated in its leveraged buyout.
B. Riley Financial, with the ticker RILY, has seen the price of shares drop more than 68 percent over the past 12 months and was trading at $6.01 Wednesday morning.
As part of its overhaul, B. Riley Financial at the start of November said it was selling a part of its employee wealth management group to Stifel Financial Corp. $27 million to $35 million in cash.
The price tag for the 40 to 50 financial advisors, known as W2 advisors because they are paid as fulltime employees, was far less than expected.
According to a report in September from Reuters, Stifel was in talks to buy B. Riley’s retail brokerage group for $100 million.
At the time it was questioned whether Stifel had any interest in B. Riley’s 190 or so independent financial advisors, called so because they are paid and employed as independent contractors.
Employee brokers on average generate more revenue for the broker-dealer than independent contractors.
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