A Los Angeles–based bank with more than 50 brokers is parting ways with LPL and returning to Cetera.
Cathay Bank, a subsidiary of the publicly traded Cathay General Bancorp, oversees $507 million in client assets and employs 53 brokers who work out of the majority of the bank’s 58 branches across the United States. The wealth management unit is returning to Cetera Financial Institutions, which focuses on supporting similar programs and advisors based out of banks and credit unions.
The bank said its wealth management business was affiliated with Cetera but left for LPL, while Cetera was restructuring and parting ways with its former owner, RCS Capital, which filed for bankruptcy early last year.
The first branch of Cathay Bank opened in 1962 and catered to Chinese-Americans in southern California. It was one of the first institutions there to focus on providing trans-Pacific business and high-net-worth retail banking services to both Asia-based businesses and individuals with extensive financial interests in America. The bancorp as a whole manages over $14.5 billion in assets. It only started its wealth management business in 2002.
“Cathay Bank continues to be in high-growth mode and is specifically emphasizing its wealth management program as a key growth driver,” said Cetera Financial President LeAnn Rummel.
Cetera’s business focused on bank-based advisory programs, and its company culture is what drove Cathay to return, according to Philip Hurst, senior vice president and director of wealth management at Cathay Bank.
The wealth management unit is not the only business Cetera has attracted this year. Top LPL advisor Ron Carson moved his firm, Carson Wealth Management, to Cetera Financial early last year, and HBW Partners, a 26-year-old broker/dealer with 55 advisors across the country supporting $820 million in assets, joined in June.