This week’s stories that financial advisers can’t miss

This week, financial advisers ate up stories about a salacious lawsuit and a golden era for independent advisers. They also took the plunge and attempted to unravel the complex web of Nicholas Schorsch’s many companies, as well as which Wall Street executives earned the most in 2013. Here are the stories that best captured the interest of the InvestmentNews audience this week.
Adviser faces $5M sexual harassment lawsuit from former intern
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A sordid tale of legal entanglement between UBS, a former adviser and a former intern captivated our readers. As part of a massive $5 million lawsuit, a former UBS intern claims an adviser at the firm offered her a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes and a designer handbag in exchange for sex. UBS and the accused adviser deny the claims, which are many. Mason Braswell’s story has the full rundown of accusations: text messages, attempts to arrange hotel room meetings, and the like. This reader comment pinpoints the key takeaway from this sketchy situation.
Understanding the expansive Nicholas Schorsch empire
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Nicholas Schorsch’s rise in the REIT and broker-dealer industries has been meteoric, and our readers jumped at the chance to get some clarity about the composition of the so-called REIT czar’s empire. This handy infographic makes differentiating between American Realty Capital, RCS Capital Corp. and American Realty Capital Properties Inc. a lot less daunting. And a week wouldn’t be complete without a Schorsch-led company buying something, this time a tech firm providing SEC- and Finra-compliant paperless processing systems to financial services firms.
2013 was a great time to be an adviser
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The findings of the 2014 InvestmentNews Financial Performance Study of Advisory Firms show that assets, revenue and profit margins all climbed for advisers last year. Welcome to a golden age for independent advisers, as according to the study, assets under management have increased an average of 20% every year since 2009. Liz Skinner’s story breaks down the other pertinent data points from the study, along with a warning about the need for investment in human capital if this type of growth is to be sustained.
The best-paid executives at publicly-traded banks and broker-dealers
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Hard to stop Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein from smiling, as he lands on this new list of top compensated chief executive officers at banks and broker-dealers that are publicly traded. But he wasn’t the best-paid exec on Wall Street in 2013. Our readers ran to learn who made the most money in 2013, and even more interesting is how some of the compensation data compares to 2012.