Deals & People December 18, 2015

Retirement Industry People Moves

Lathrop & Gage adds an ESOP pro, BTIG expands its transition management unit, Triad Advisors names new CEO, and more.
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Lynn A. Archer has joined the tax and employee benefits team of Lathrop & Gage as counsel in its ESOP practice group.

Previously, Archer served as an ESOP consultant for Principal Financial Group, where she partnered with CPAs, legal counsel and other advisers to assist companies in connection with ESOPs.

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Archer focuses her practice on the design, implementation, qualification, administration, funding, communication and termination of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). She regularly advises companies, trustees and lenders in connection with the negotiation and implementation of ESOP stock purchase and sale transactions and equity and non-equity based incentive compensation arrangements. She also advises companies regarding 401(k) and other benefit plans, employee education, corporate governance, fiduciary duties and other transactional and employee benefit matters.

Archer is actively involved in multiple ESOP organizations and currently serves on the Executive Committee for the ESOP Association Northwest Chapter, and on the Legislative and Regulatory Committee for the ESOP Association.

Robert Grossman, chair of the firm’s business law division and the leader of its ESOP practice group, cites Archer for her extensive ESOP experience.

Archer holds a juris doctor degree from Lewis & Clark School of Law in Portland, Oregon. Archer is admitted in Oregon. Her application for admittance in Missouri is pending.

NEXT: BTIG expands transition management group with senior hire

Daniel Howell has joined BTIG, a global financial services firm, as director of the transition management business.

Howell will focus on business development efforts in transition management. His client coverage areas will include public and private pensions, corporations, fund managers, Taft-Hartley plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations of all sizes around the globe. Howell spent the last eight years in similar roles at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing and Citigroup Global Capital Markets.

Howell joins a team of industry experts, including Kenneth Temple, director, and Adrienne Schaefer, senior vice president. He will be based in New York and report to Thomas Smykowski, managing director and head of global portfolio and ETF trading at BTIG, who cites Howell for his industry experience.  

Anton LeRoy, chief operating officer of BTIG, lauds Howell’s deep understanding of the industry and considerable experience in a niche product.

BTIG Transition Management services asset owners undergoing portfolio rebalances and changes to their external investment management team.

NEXT: Mercer, Vemo in strategic alliance

Mercer forms strategic alliance with Vemo, a workforce analytics and planning software company. Vemo will provide the technology platform for the firm’s metrics and analytics solution that is currently provided by Mercer Analytics.

Vemo, which has been providing workforce solutions for more than 10 years, focuses exclusively on workforce intelligence software and will enhance Mercer’s current offering of a reliable technology solution with ongoing product enhancements, content, and consultative support. The offering combines Vemo’s technology with Mercer’s consulting capabilities in Workforce Analytics.

Pat Tomlinson, North American business leader for talent at Mercer, says both firms share a passion for workforce analytics.  “Most importantly, we’re committed to providing clients with a solution that bundles analytics technology and expert advice to deliver user-friendly business relevant analytics to make informed workforce decisions.”

Peter Louch, chief executive and cofounder of Vemo, says the methodology and approach to analytics and planning for both firms aligns extremely well. “Our companies will be able to offer clients a more comprehensive workforce analytics and planning solution that integrates technology and advisory services to create effective workforce strategies based on data.”

NEXT: New leadership for Triad Advisors

Jeff Rosenthal has been named president and chief executive of Triad Advisors, effective January 1. 

Rosenthal, who now serves as executive vice president and chief marketing officer, will assume leadership of the firm’s management team and continue providing service to its affiliated advisers across the country.

Since he joined Triad in 2002, Rosenthal has worked across a range of senior leadership roles. In his most recent role as executive vice president and chief marketing Officer, Rosenthal led the marketing, practice management and education, due diligence, and advisory services teams.

Mark Mettelman, Triad Advisors’ president and chief executive, will transition to the role of chairman, continuing to provide strategic guidance. Mettelman cofounded Triad Advisors in 1998, and continued as the firm’s leader following its acquisition by Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services eight years later. Triad Advisors has operated as a standalone business with its own brand and autonomous management team since then.

Mettelman cites Rosenthal for his deep industry understanding and passion for service.

Triad Advisors is a national, independent broker/dealer and multi-custodial registered investment adviser (RIA), and a wholly owned subsidiary of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services.

NEXT: John Hancock names vice president of retirement unit

Scott Schaerer has been named vice president of Total Retirement Solutions for John Hancock Retirement Plan Services (JHRPS) in the Pacific Northwest.

Schaerer will work closely with mid- and large-market advisers/consultants with retirement plan opportunities greater than $20 million. Most recently, he was a regional director with a large retirement plan provider where he worked with more than 250 advisory firms in the northwest. Before that, he was practice leader for another firm that provided advisory services to plan sponsors. Schaerer has also worked for a national retirement plan consultancy, where he built a successful advisory practice in Oregon and Washington.

Schaerer will be based in Portland, Oregon, and cover northern California, including the Bay Area, as well as northern Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. Schaerer will report to Jim Brockelman, national sales manager, Total Retirement Solutions, who cites Schaerer for his naturally consultative selling style and more than 20 years’ experience as an adviser and distributor.

Schaerer holds a bachelor’s degree from the School of Business at the University of Oregon and holds the FINRA Series 7 and 66 licenses.

NEXT: BMO Global Asset Management adds to consultant relationships team

Bernie Norton has joined BMO Global Asset Management as director of consultant relations.

Norton will develop and maintain relationships with the investment consultant community, particularly in the Midwest. He will serve as the primary contact for consultants.

Norton, who has more than 14 years’ experience in institutional asset management, was most recently director of institutional business development at Northern Lights Capital Group, where he led new business development and client service for consultants and institutions in the Midwest, and managed relationships in the territory. Previously, he was a consultant relations manager at Janus Capital Group.

Mark Osterkamp, managing director, head of institutional sales and service at BMO Global Asset Management, cites Norton for his significant industry expertise. Norton will be based in Denver.

Norton holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

Compliance December 18, 2015

FINRA Slaps Fidelity for Supervisory Failures

Fidelity has been fined $500,000 for failing to follow up on red flags that could have detected or prevented the theft of funds from senior investors.
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According to a statement from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC was fined $500,000 and ordered to pay nearly $530,000 in restitution for failing to detect or prevent the theft of more than $1 million from nine of its customers, eight of whom were senior citizens, by a fraudster posing as a Fidelity broker.

Lisa Lewis posed as a Fidelity broker, obtained her victims’ personal information, and systematically stole customer assets through numerous transfers and debit-card transactions.

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Fidelity says the firm regrets that the fraud committed by Lewis—who is now serving prison time—included nine of its customers. “We take the protection of customer accounts very seriously,” Adam Banker, a spokesman for Fidelity, tells PLANADVISER. “We assisted law enforcement with this matter and have since taken steps to further strengthen our controls, including enhancing account monitoring and surveillance.”

FINRA found that from August 2006 until her fraud was discovered in May 2013, Lewis was running a conversion scheme by targeting former customers from another brokerage firm from which she had been fired. Lewis told the victims she was a Fidelity broker and urged them to establish accounts at the firm and also established joint accounts with her victims in which she was listed as an owner. She eventually established more than 50 accounts and converted assets from a number of these accounts for her own personal benefit. In June 2014, Lewis pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution to her victims.

FINRA found that Fidelity failed to detect or adequately follow up on multiple “red flags” related to Lewis’s scheme. For example, though Lewis’ victims were unrelated to one another, their various accounts shared a number of common identifiers tying them all to Lewis, such as a common email address, physical address or phone number.

NEXT: Fidelity’s new security measures

Fidelity also failed to detect Lewis’ consistent pattern of money movements and overlooked red flags in telephone calls handled by its customer-service call center, in which there were indications that Lewis was impersonating or taking advantage of her senior investor victims.

FINRA also found Fidelity’s inadequate supervisory systems and procedures contributed to the failure to detect and prevent fraudulent activities by Lewis. Though Fidelity maintained a report designed to identify common email addresses shared across multiple accounts, it failed to implement procedures regarding the report's use and dedicate adequate resources to the review and investigation of the reports. As a result, there was a backlog in reviewing thousands of reports, including a report in March 2012 showing that Lewis’ email address was associated with dozens of otherwise unrelated accounts. The report was not reviewed by anyone at Fidelity until April 2013, more than a year after it was generated.

In settling this matter, Fidelity neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.

Banker says new measures include additional surveillance of disbursements from accounts, and explains that enhanced monitoring of certain account distributions was already in development at the time Lewis was committing her allegedly fraudulent actions.

“We have implemented elder financial exploitation surveillance, which monitors various types of money movement in accounts owned by senior investors,” Banker says. “Both measures are aimed at identifying and preventing precisely the type of fraud Lewis committed. We have also further enhanced our employee awareness and training about issues that can affect senior investors, including elder financial exploitation. This training and related employee education programs help our associates and employees identify and appropriately respond to instances of potential elder financial exploitation.”

In October, Fidelity was accused by Massachusetts securities regulators of allowing unregisteredindividuals to use its platforms and perform inappropriate functions.

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