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 keeping with a current Kind ADV submitting. Ahluwalia is at present an government companion to the monetary expertise and providers vertical at Thomas H. Lee Companions, Hightower’s personal fairness proprietor. He’s been registered with Hightower Securities, the agency’s dealer/seller since November.
The submitting additionally named Michael DiBiasio, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, as chief working officer, and Daniel Berg, an government director of company finance at Hightower, as CFO, a job beforehand held by Dan Watanapongse. A Hightower spokesperson mentioned Watanapongse will stay with the agency to assist with the transition over the subsequent three months.
Bob Oros will proceed to function chairman and CEO of the corporate.
“Hightower Advisors continues to broaden its government crew by including proficient leaders who can assist our enterprise and shopper aims,” Oros mentioned, in an announcement. “With the additions of Gurinder Ahluwalia as President and Michael DiBiasio as COO, we’re supporting the construction of progress and on the similar time making certain that we are able to 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 major 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 totally affiliated with Hightower. THL additionally introduced in tenured wealth administration government 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 crew, the agency’s infrastructure, and its acquisition technique.
In 2020, THL closed on a secondary transaction with Hightower.
Oros 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 revealed stories on the contrary.
“We’re not trying to promote,” Oros mentioned. “THL has no real interest in exiting Hightower. They’ve been right here since 2018 once they made their unique funding. We’ve already recapitalized as soon as with them and introduced in some further fairness traders. Will we herald future fairness traders? Most likely, but it surely’s not going to be within the type of a sale.”
