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Hightower Advisors, the RIA platform with greater than $130 billion in property, has named Gurinder Ahluwalia, lead director of the agency’s board of administrators, as president, a newly created place, in line with a latest Kind ADV submitting. Ahluwalia is at the moment an govt companion to the monetary expertise and companies vertical at Thomas H. Lee Companions, Hightower’s non-public fairness proprietor. He’s been registered with Hightower Securities, the agency’s dealer/supplier since November.
The submitting additionally named Michael DiBiasio, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, as chief working officer, and Daniel Berg, an govt director of company finance at Hightower, as CFO, a task beforehand held by Dan Watanapongse. A Hightower spokesperson mentioned Watanapongse will stay with the agency to assist with the transition over the following three months.
Bob Oros will proceed to function chairman and CEO of the corporate.
“Hightower Advisors continues to develop its govt group by including gifted leaders who can help our enterprise and shopper goals,” Oros mentioned, in a press release. “With the additions of Gurinder Ahluwalia as President and Michael DiBiasio as COO, we’re supporting the construction of progress and on the identical time making certain that we will proceed to drive momentum for our advisors in a means that’s proactive and scalable.”
A spokeswoman for THL didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
THL employed Ahluwalia in 2016, when it launched its wealth administration vertical. Ahluwalia has a protracted historical past within the business, together with serving as the previous president and CEO of AssetMark and co-founder of 280 CapMarkets. He served as president of Genworth Monetary’s wealth administration division earlier than that.
THL acquired “a big stake” in Hightower in 2018. To re-establish belief with Hightower’s advisors, THL efficiently negotiated transactions with every of the agency’s advisors to make them absolutely affiliated with Hightower. THL additionally introduced in tenured wealth administration govt Bob Oros to succeed Elliot Weissbluth as CEO; since then, Oros has led what he calls a “strategic shift,” constructing out and unifying Hightower’s administration group, the agency’s infrastructure, and its acquisition technique.
In 2020, THL closed on a secondary transaction with Hightower.
Oros just lately sat down with WealthManagement.com to replicate on the final 5 years on the helm of Hightower, and he mentioned THL has no real interest in promoting Hightower, regardless of printed stories on the contrary.
“We’re not seeking to promote,” Oros mentioned. “THL has no real interest in exiting Hightower. They’ve been right here since 2018 after they made their authentic funding. We’ve already recapitalized as soon as with them and introduced in some further fairness buyers. Will we usher in future fairness buyers? Most likely, nevertheless it’s not going to be within the type of a sale.”
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