Rockefeller CEO’s death is apparent suicide

James McDonald, president and chief executive of Rockefeller & Co. Inc., one of the country's largest multifamily offices, died on Sunday. He was 56.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, it was an apparent suicide.

A friend of Mr. McDonald’s family issued a statement Monday night that Mr. McDonald, who had been president and chief executive of Rockefeller since 2001, “took his own life,” according to the Journal.

According to the RIA Database, Rockefeller was the fourth-largest registered-independent-advisory firm in the country as of June 30, with $5.6 billion in total assets.

A spokesman for Rockefeller said that the Austin Shapard, the company’s chief operating and financial officer, has assumed day-to-day leadership of the company on an interim basis.

Rockefeller’s board, led by Colin Campbell and Mark F. Rockefeller, vice chairman, will continue to oversee the overall management of the company, the spokesman added.