Signator, John Hancock's IBD, taps new CEO

Culminating a busy year, Signator Investors Inc., John Hancock's independent broker-dealer, said on Thursday it was appointing a new CEO to replace its longtime chief, Brian Heapps, who is retiring. Signator has tapped industry and firm veteran Christopher Maryanopolis, currently the firm's president, to replace Mr. Heapps. The change takes effect at the start of next year, the company said in a press release. It has been an active 12 months for Signator, which had 1,440 affiliated producing reps at the end of 2015, according to InvestmentNews data. Signator spent the past year increasing that tally. Last November, John Hancock said it was acquiring up to 1,100 advisers from Transamerica Financial Advisors Inc., or about one-quarter of those affiliated with Transamerica at the time. After excluding close to 200 of those advisers, Signator in May closed on the deal and acquired 883 registered reps and advisers from Transamerica. Those advisers had $25 billion in client assets and Signator now has close to $50 billion in assets under management and close to 2,200 advisers under its roof. For the past 10 years, Mr. Heapps was instrumental in changing Signator from a company in which its advisers sold proprietary products to a firm with an open architecture model, according to the company. Mr. Maryanopolis was originally brought in to Signator in 2007 to oversee the operations, service and trading areas of the firm, the company said in its press release. He quickly moved on to become head of the broker-dealer and corporate registered investment adviser. “Although Signator has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, I believe the next 10 could be equally as transformative,” said Mr. Heapps in the company statement. Mr. Maryanopolis “has a great understanding of all the facets of our business as well as what is needed to succeed in today's ever-changing regulatory, advisor and customer environments.”