RCS Capital (RCAP) said Thursday that it reached an agreement with JMP Group (JMP) so the 9,700-plus financial advisors affiliated with its Cetera Financial Group and their 2 million retail clients can participate in initial public offerings (IPOs) and other securities offerings underwritten by the underwriter.
Cetera Financial Group also announced that one of its business units is expanding its relationship with Broadridge Financial Solutions (BR) to improve the self-clearing processes it offers to nearly 500 financial institutions. The unit, Cetera Financial Institutions, provides wealth management, brokerage and investment solutions to bank and credit union-based investment programs and financial advisors.
"Our relationship with JMP demonstrates our continuing commitment to capitalize on external opportunities in order to provide our retail investors with an excellent series of choices from among a diverse portfolio of investment solutions," said Cetera Financial Group CEO Larry Roth, in a statement. "We look forward to delivering previously inaccessible offerings to our customers and further strengthening RCAP's industry leading platform in the retail advisory space."
(In September, RCS tapped former-LPL Financial executive Bill Dwyer as the CEO of its Realty Capital Securities unit. That news came on the heels of RCS Capital's July announcement that it was setting up a crowdfunding investment platform with assets — and management — being acquired from Trupoly, an investor-relations portal.)
Cetera Financial Group's retail-advice platform includes Cetera Advisors, Cetera Advisor Networks, Cetera Financial Specialists, Cetera Investment Services (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions), First Allied Securities, Investors Capital, J.P. Turner and Co., the Legend Group and Summit Brokerage Services, along with VSR Financial and Girard Securities following the close of their acquisitions by RCAP.
"Both Cetera Financial Group and our parent company, RCS Capital, have an unwavering commitment to empowering the delivery of best-of-breed wealth management solutions among banks and credit unions through Cetera Financial Institutions," said Roth, in a separate statement.
"The Cetera Financial Institutions self-clearing platform is unique within our network of broker-dealers, as is the firm's focus on financial institutions," the executive explained. "Banks and credit unions throughout the country have enormous potential to meet the financial planning and wealth management needs of their customers, and we are excited to deliver the resources Cetera Financial Institutions needs to help these institutions and their financial advisors realize that potential."
According to Cetera Financial Institutions President & CEO Catherine Bonneau, the business was "the first bank and credit union channel-focused independent broker-dealer to begin self-clearing, in 1990."
The expanded relationship with Broadridge, Bonneau adds, aims "to reaffirm our commitment to self-clearing as part of a broader set of technology innovations designed to reinforce our leadership in this market."
The platform changes include access to the Investigo tool, which lets advisors see a consolidated statement of advisory, brokerage, annuity and direct assets and share consolidated reports about asset performance; Ascendis technology, which allows for straight-through processing; the ability to launch tablet and mobile-phone enabled capabilities by 2015; and improvements to a marketing program that supports outreach when financial institutions are concerned about declining branch traffic.
