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Industry Spotlight > Broker Dealers

Cambridge Takes Stake in $4B Broker-Dealer

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Cambridge Investment Research announced today it has added FCG Advisors, which has $4 billion in assets under administration, as an enterprise firm. The Chatham, New Jersey boutique firm has 19 licensed financial professionals and approximately $9 million in annual revenue. Fairfield, Iowa-based Cambridge’s AUA as of August was $114.1 billion, with 3,586 active financial professionals.

Although terms were not disclosed, Cambridge said it had acquired “ownership of limited assets of FCG Advisors” and that 40-year industry veteran John Combias, founder and managing director of the former RIA and broker-dealer, will maintain control.

Cambridge has defined enterprise firms as advisors collaborating under shared leadership but operating under separate marketing identities.

The IBD said it took a “small minority stake” and it has been averaging roughly one acquisition a year for the past five years, “however, these opportunities have become a larger focus.”

According to Cambridge President and CEO Amy Webber, “FCG Advisor’s values closely align with Cambridge. As an enterprise, the firm is competitively positioned with access to expanded resources, reduced risk, and a focus on growth of their financial professionals and their clients.”

FCG Advisors was founded in 1996 by Combias, who began his career with Merrill Lynch. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree from the University of Vermont.

“We plan to further expand our enterprise by taking advantage of Cambridge’s solutions for growth and guidance on best practices to further elevate our success,” said Combias in a statement. FCG Advisors had reviewed several potential partners and decided Cambridge was the best fit, according to the release.

Joining him in leadership will be Thomas Holevas, who has been registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for two years, but been with FCG since 2012 as chief operating officer and has worked in finance for 30 years. He received his MBA from the University of Chicago.

Also part of the leadership team is Christopher Glatz, who has been in the business for 28 years, in 1996 joining FCG, where he is operations manager. He began his career at John Hancock Financial Services. He received an MBA from Rutgers.

In early September, Cambridge announced a it would be implementing cloud-native technology from INVENT.us to redesign its CLIC digital business environment for independent advisors. The purpose was to provide seamless data integrations between applications for financial planning, CRM, trading and client reporting while integrating more directly into Cambridge’s core systems, and offer a redesigned user interface that simplifies navigation, reduces clicks and eliminates redundant data entry.

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