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November 06, 2014 at 04:17 AM
RCS Capital (RCAP) is doing nearly all it can to distance itself from Nicholas Schorsch and American Realty Capital (ARCP), which revealed accounting errors last week totalling some $23 million.
That news prompted RCAP to call off a deal to buy part of Cole Capital from ARCP on Monday, and over the past few days, a number of independent broker-dealers, including LPL Financial (LPLA), said they are stopping sales of REITs tied to ARCP.
On Wednesday, Cetera Financial Group — part of RCS Capital, of which Schorsch is chairman — joined these rival IBDs and asked its affiliated advisors to suspend sales of three Cole nontraded REITs, according to a memo obtained by our sister site, ThinkAdvisor.
A statement released by RCAP late Wednesday explained, “Cetera Financial Group and RCS Capital are separate and distinct companies from American Realty Capital Properties and AR Capital LLC. Consistent with Cetera Financial Group’s longstanding processes, we conduct ongoing due diligence of all open nontraded REITs. Beyond this, and as a matter of policy, we do not publicly comment on specific products and product companies.”
This tone reflects that of a press release issued by RCS Capital earlier in the day, in which it said it and ARCP “are two separate and independent public corporations.”
Still, Schorsch, who is board chairman for ARCP, remains executive chairman of RCAP. He co-founded ARCP in 2007 with Bill Kahane, who currently is an RCAP director. In addition, RCAP Chief Investment Officer Peter Budko is a former CIO of ARCP, and RCAP CFO Brian Jones acted as chief operating officer of ARCP for most of 2013.
“The fact that RCAP and ARCP are distinct corporate entities with separate boards and the like is technically true, but the scandal has tarnished the entire Schorsch brand. In other words, although these are two separate corporate entities, their brands are linked in terms of their public image,” said executive-search consultant Mark Elzweig, in an interview.
“This is unfortunate,” Elzweig said, “considering that ARCP had built up a very strong brand and strong relationships with advisors who valued what the company brought to the nontraded REIT niche.”
The accounting errors revealed last week overstated adjusted funds from operations — a measure of REIT cash flow — and understated a net loss for both the first quarter and first half of the year. American Realty says it will reduce its adjusted FFO by $12 million for the first quarter and $10.9 million for the three months ended in June.
“That’s why four [unaffiliated] independent broker-dealer groups have stopped sales of some Schorsch products, and they are not going to resume the relationship [with ARCP] until they’re satisfied this is a one-off issue,” added Elzweig. “Once the outside IBDs are satisfied that there are no more issues with other products, they should resume their relationships with ARCP.”
In addition to LPL Financial, the unaffiliated IBD groups that have suspended ARCP-related REITs include the AIG-owned Advisor Group, Ladenburg Thalmann (LTS)-owned Securities America and National Planning Holdings.
