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Hightower Advisors, the RIA platform with greater than $130 billion in belongings, has named Gurinder Ahluwalia, lead director of the agency’s board of administrators, as president, a newly created place, in accordance with a current Kind ADV submitting. Ahluwalia is presently an govt associate to the monetary know-how and providers vertical at Thomas H. Lee Companions, Hightower’s non-public 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 govt 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 following three months.
Bob Oros will proceed to function chairman and CEO of the corporate.
“Hightower Advisors continues to broaden its govt workforce 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 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 an extended historical past within the trade, 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 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 workforce, the agency’s infrastructure, and its acquisition technique.
In 2020, THL closed on a secondary transaction with Hightower.
Oros not too long ago sat down with WealthManagement.com to mirror on the final 5 years on the helm of Hightower, and he mentioned THL has little interest in promoting Hightower, regardless of printed reviews on the contrary.
“We’re not seeking to promote,” Oros mentioned. “THL has little interest in exiting Hightower. They’ve been right here since 2018 after they made their unique funding. We’ve already recapitalized as soon as with them and introduced in some extra fairness buyers. Will we usher in future fairness buyers? In all probability, however it’s not going to be within the type of a sale.”
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