The financial services firm says it will keep the First Allied Securities brand name as it continues to expand its network of financial and retirement plan advisers.
Cetera Financial Group has wrapped brokerage First Allied Securities, which it bought in 2013, into its Cetera Advisors division in a move to bring more advisers in-house, according to the firm.
Cetera, whose services include financial wellness and employer retirement plan services, decided to close the securities firm as a separate legal entity, but will keep the brand, a spokesperson for Cetera said in an email.
The move continues the consolidation of Cetera’s broker/dealer brands under one umbrella after being acquired by private equity firm Genstar Capital in 2018. Putting First Allied under Cetera Advisors gives its more than 400 financial professionals access to the technology and resources of the larger Cetera (which has some 8,000 independent financial professionals in its network), according to the spokesperson and company website.
The First Allied Securities website now reads: “First Allied has joined Cetera Advisors as of September 12, 2022. You will be redirected to Cetera Advisors shortly,” after which the page automatically redirects to a Cetera brokerage site.
First Allied Securities was founded in 1994 and acquired by RCAP Holdings in 2013. RCAP filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and later emerged as Cetera. The purchase by Genstar was intended to accelerate growth through investing in technology and operations for advisers giving financial advice and guidance to individuals, as well as retirement plan sponsors.
In the meantime, Cetera has been focused on adding independent financial advisers to its network, saying in October it attracted a record $6.3 billion in assets due to recruiting efforts.
“As advisers increasingly seek independence combined with leading support and resources, we are positioned well to stand out and attract even more financial professionals to Cetera,” John Pierce, head of business development, said in a press release.
The firm has been announcing additions to its business development team in recent years. In 2019, it brought on 900 independent financial professionals from Voya Financial. This year, it announced a number of affiliations ranging from Burrows Capital Advisors with $3 billion assets under advisement and Harvest Wealth, with $1 billion in assets under advisement, to smaller firms such as three teams managing a combined $550 million in assets.
The financial adviser space has been consolidating in recent years as the industry faces an aging adviser space, the need to pay for advances in technology, fee compression and the need for scale, according to industry analysis.
Cetera oversees about $353 billion in assets under administration and $122 billion in assets under management as of the end of 2021, according to the company’s website.
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Preqin brings benchmarking to “opaque” alternative assets market; Fortress start new alternative asset investment division; Pimco fund taps private and commercial real estate; and more.
Preqin Brings Asset-Level Benchmarks to the Alternatives Market
Preqin, an alternative assets data-provider, has launched anonymized and aggregated asset-level benchmarks for alternative asset managers to compare their investments as well as those of other market players, the company said. The “all-in-one” solution will give investment insight from the asset-level to private capital and hedge fund benchmarks, across funds, companies, fund managers, and investors.
Accessing precise and representative datasets in the alternative market is challenging due to the opaque nature of the market, the company said. It’s new benchmarks will help private market professionals make better investment decisions as they look to leverage alternative assets during the current market volatility, Preqin said in a statement.
The benchmarks will cover more than 55% of all-time buyout deals in North America and Europe with 4,500 private market funds and 45,000 private market deals, and including asset classes such as private equity, private debt venture capital, the firm said.
Fortress Investment Launches Investment Firm for Alternative Asset Classes
Fortress Investment Group has formed Fortress Private Wealth Solutions a new business for a growing segment of individual investors seeking greater access to alternative asset classes and private markets, the firm said.
Fortress Private Wealth Solutions is part of the firm’s Credit and Real Estate business, which manages more than $45 billion across a broad range of alternative asset classes on behalf of institutional investors. The business is co-headed by Managing Directors Nils Wilson and Adam Bobker, the company said.
“We have seen a dramatic increase in demand from individual investors for access to alternative investment products and the type of risk and return profiles found predominantly in private markets,” Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bobker said in a press release.
Products created and managed by Fortress Private Wealth Solutions and its affiliates will be distributed through agreements with leading wirehouses, private banks, registered investment advisors (“RIAs”) and independent broker/dealers.
Fortress Investment Group manages $45.7 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2022, on behalf of over 1,900 institutional clients and private investors worldwide across a range of credit and real estate, private equity and permanent capital investment strategies, according to the company.
PIMCO Launches Fund for Public and Private Commercial Real Estate Markets
Fixed income investment manager PIMCO has launched the PIMCO Flexible Real Estate Income Fund (REFLX), the firm’s first real-estate-focused interval fund that will invest in public and private markets by connecting to the firm’s $190 billion commercial real estate platform. The fund aims to provide current income and long-term capital appreciation, PIMCO said on its website.
REFLX seeks to provide investors with access to a broad set of public and private real estate investment opportunities and will have the flexibility to invest in four distinct quadrants of the “CRE” markets: 1) private equity by acquiring stabilized, income-oriented CRE; 2) private real estate loans; 3) public debt, such as commercial mortgaged-backed securities, and 4) public equity such as real estate investment trusts, or REITs, the company said.
“The extraordinary re-pricing of assets across financial markets this year has created what we think are some of the most attractive investment opportunities in more than a decade,” Dan Ivascyn, PIMCO Managing Director and Group Investment Officer, said in a press release.
REFLX is part of PIMCO’s interval fund complex, where the firm focuses on providing investors with access to less liquid, income-oriented solutions across a range of asset classes – credit, municipal bonds, emerging markets and real estate. PIMCO launched its first interval fund in 2017 and has more than $4.5 billion of AUM across five continuously offered interval funds, as of September 30, 2022.
Dimensional Fund Advisors Expands with Large Cap Value and Real Estate ETFs
Dimensional Fund Advisors has expanded its exchange-traded funds offering with the Dimensional US Large Cap Value ETF and Dimensional Global Real Estate ETF. These new funds offer targeted access to premiums across a diversified set of domestic large cap value equities and a variety of US and international real estate equities, the firm said. “Dimensional has been investing in both large cap value and real estate securities for three decades, providing capital markets expertise that we have now made available within ETFs,” Co-CEO and Chief Investment Officer Gerard O’Reilly said in a press release.
The new funds, which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), are the Dimensional US Large Cap Value ETF and Dimensional Global Real Estate ETF.
The two funds join Dimensional’s growing ETF lineup totaling 30 funds, which, the company said, is the industry’s largest set of actively managed ETFs and holds approximately $70 billion in assets under management.
Asahi to Launch Investment Funds in U.S. Beer Startups in January
Asahi Group Holdings is going to launch an investment company called Asahi Group Beverages & Innovation in January to invest minority shares in U.S. startups in the beer business.
Asahi is aiming for “sustainable growth of existing businesses centered on beer category while expanding into new areas,” which is the ideal business portfolio, the Tokyo-based beverage company said in a press release.
The fund will provide U.S. startups that have attractive brands with significant future growth potential in the low-alcohol beverages, non-alcohol beer-taste beverages, and adult soft drink categories, Asahi said. Additionally, the fund intends to invest in startups with technology that will lead to new sales and manufacturing methods. Asahi said that the U.S. alcohol and non-alcohol beverage market is a world leader in creating new categories and trends, as seen in the past significant growth of hard seltzer and energy drinks.
Through minority investment and collaboration with such startups, Asahi will support the expansion of sales in the US and abroad for the products and services provided by those companies. Additionally, the company said it will provide Asahi’s regional headquarters in Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia with information about startup initiatives and trends that will be used to contribute to the growth of Asahi’s existing businesses.
Asahi expects total investment to reach about $70 million by the end of 2025.
