New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald Wealth Partners has acquired Capital Planning Advisory Group, a Yardley, Pa.-based RIA and the sixth team to join Cantor’s wealth management business since the launch of that division last September. The team manages about $120 million in assets, according to Meridian-IQ. The acquisition brings Cantor Fitzgerald's wealth management division to just over $3 billion in assets.
The joining team includes George Luciani, president of CPAG, Annie Stiles, vice president and financial planner, Caren Habermehl, client service associate, and Dorie McCarthy, office manager.
“George and his group felt that by bringing the Cantor brand...that their clients would enhance their wallet share with them,” said Stan Gregor, co-CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald Wealth Partners. “And they also felt that they can go after much larger mandates, where in the past they didn’t have a shot to go after.”
Those mandates may include institutional clients, such as 401(k) plans, Gregor said.
“Some of those plans are multi-billion-dollar plans, and if your firm is only $100 to $200 million in size, you’re pretty hard-pressed to get that done.”
Cantor has been on the acquisition trail since making its first foray into the private client space late last year. In February, the firm acquired Pittsburgh-based First Commonwealth Financial Advisors, with $2 billion in assets under advisement and led by Richard Applegate. In March, Cantor added advisors Jeff Schulte and Jim Hiles from Mariner Wealth Advisors.
Gregor says the firm has three other large deals in the works, which will be announced soon.
The firm expanded into wealth management to complement its other businesses and bring its institutional services, like hedge funds and alternative strategies, to individual investors. Some of Cantor’s investment management partners require client minimums of $25 million to $50 million. But because of the firm’s relationships with those managers on the institutional side, clients can get access to hedge funds and alternative strategies at a much lower minimum, Gregor said.
All advisors who sign on become employees of the firm and get an equity stake in Cantor.
The firm has over 8,500 total employees across the globe, including about 1,000 partners. In the 9/11 attacks, Cantor lost nearly 700 employees who worked at the firm’s World Trade Center headquarters.
“You’re given an opportunity to be part of a firm that’s been around for 70 years that survived some of the most horrific times in history and has proven to be resilient and bounced back—not just bounced back but bounced back multiple times stronger,” Gregor said, referring to advisors who are interested in joining.
A former WealthManagement.com staff member, Kevin Burke, lost his brother Matthew, an equity trader at Cantor, in the 9/11 attacks. Read about his story here. Matthew was 28 years old at the time.
