CI’s Private Wealth Unit Has a New Name

What You Need to Know

CI Private Wealth changed its U.S. brand name to Corient, derived from client oriented.
The change received a positive reaction from some members of the financial services industry.
CI's rebranding followed the recent name change of Riskalyze to Nitrogen and Advisor Group to Osaic.

Corient, the new brand name of CI Private Wealth, is being greeted with an initially positive reaction from some members of the financial services industry.

The wealth advisory firm’s new name was derived from “client oriented” and “expresses the firm’s commitment to providing its clients with an unparalleled wealth management experience,” the Miami-based subsidiary of Toronto-based CI Financial Group, said in announcing the rebranding on Tuesday.

Corient now serves as the brand for all CI Private Wealth offices, the company said, noting it “discontinued co-branding with its legacy firm names, effective immediately.”

The move, it said, “reflects the ongoing integration of Corient’s predecessor companies into one cohesive” registered investment advisor firm.

CI’s rebranding followed the recent name change of Riskalyze to Nitrogen and Advisor Group to Osaic.

Industry Reaction

In the case of CI, “the timing for a rebrand does seem logical, given the unification of the various entities” at the firm, according to Rob Farmer, managing director and head of communications at The Rudin Group.

“Also, there is less risk of unwinding the brand equity of CI in the U.S. given its short tenure here,” Farmer told ThinkAdvisor on Friday. “The new name will probably take hold soon enough. I do still chuckle at these ‘multi-step’ processes branding agencies come up with to put two words together to form one new word.”

“I appreciate the creativity behind shortening ‘client oriented’ to Corient,” said Kelly Waltrich, co-founder and CEO of Intention.ly, a consultancy firm for financial services and fintech companies.

“I think that lends itself nicely to a brand story built around client centricity,” Waltrich told ThinkAdvisor on Friday. “More than that, I appreciate the thoughtful connectivity between the name and the streamlining of the brands across the firm among all the other changes they have underway.”

She added: “The best rebrands are the lipstick on much larger internal transformations, and it feels like that’s what’s happening here.”

Offering a different but still positive take on the brand change, Timothy Welsh, founder and president of consulting firm Nexus Strategy, told ThinkAdvisor on Friday: “This isn’t so much of a good or bad decision. Rather it was a ‘have to’ decision.”

New Identity

“It’s the right time to adopt a new identity, one that conveys the value we offer and our distinct character and positioning in the marketplace,” according to Kurt MacAlpine, CEO of Corient and CI Financial Corp.

“The Corient brand embodies our mission to put our clients at the center of everything we do,” he said in a statement. “We exist for one reason: to help our clients achieve their financial goals, simplify their lives and establish legacies that will last for generations.”

He added: “The new name better reflects the extensive capabilities we offer today as a national, integrated organization and our vision to become the country’s pre-eminent private wealth firm. The unified Corient brand clarifies for clients that they benefit from the expertise of our entire network and the expanded services and capabilities made possible by our greater size and scale.”

CI entered the U.S. RIA sector in 2020 and has grown quickly through acquisitions and strong organic growth, the firm said.

“It’s the right time to adopt a new identity, one that conveys the value we offer and our distinct character and positioning in the marketplace,” according to MacAlpine.

The Corient name was selected by the company after what it said was a “rigorous, multi-step process” in which a third-party branding agency conducted extensive research and helped identify a list of possible choices. More than 70 of the firm’s partners participated in focus groups and the initial list was narrowed to two finalists, it said.

The final selection was determined by a vote of all the firm’s partners, who favored Corient by a large margin, it said. The Corient name originated with one of the company’s legacy firms but it has been “thoroughly re-imagined through its new positioning and a newly designed logo,” the company said.

CI continues to use the CI Private Wealth brand for its Canadian ultra-high-net-worth wealth management business.

CI’s U.S. wealth management business has $147 billion in assets under management, while CI Financial Corp. had $301.1 billion in assets as of June 30.