Louis Diamond Quoted
By Ian Wenik
HighTower Advisors may now have an unobstructed view of an IPO.
The RIA firm, which oversees around $68.6 billion, had long planned to go public, but those plans had been shelved by January 2018, when private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners bought a 50% stake in the firm’s holding company.
‘One of the biggest reasons they pivoted from a platform and a partnership to now acquiring firms is that they went through a presumably long process finding a private equity buyer to come in and take majority control,’ said Louis Diamond, an executive vice president at advisor recruiting firm Diamond Consultants. ‘I’m sure most of the pushback they got out of [private equity] firms walking away… was the fact that most of the advisors don’t have ties to the firm and can leave at any time.’
