Securities America acquires Brecek & Young

Ameriprise Financial Inc. has made a splash in the roiling mergers and acquisitions market for independent broker-dealers. Its independent broker-dealer subsidiary, Inc., said Tuesday it would acquire Brecek & Young Financial Advisors Inc. of Folsom, Calif. Brecek & Young is a mid-sized independent broker-dealer with more than 300 affiliated reps and $42.7 million in gross revenue. It has more than $1.3 billion in fee-based assets under management. On Tuesday, Brecek & Young’s CEO, Chris Ranney, told advisers in an e-mail that Securities America was buying the firm. This is the second change of ownership in four years for Brecek & Young, which was acquired in 2004 by life insurance company Security Benefit Corp. of Topeka, Kan. Securities America of La Vista, Neb., had been eager to make such an acquisition but, until now, had not pulled off a deal. It joins LPL Financial of San Diego and Boston, Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. of Miami and Advanced Equities Financial Corp. of Chicago as players in the market. “There’s a great cultural fit here,” said Steve McWhorter, chief executive of Securities America. Both firms “share a rep-centric” point of view in putting the advisers first, he said. Securities America has 1,750 affiliated reps and produced $506.1 million in gross revenue last year. The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, and is subject to the approval of regulators. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. A longer version of this story will appear in Monday’s edition of InvestmentNews.