Indianapolis-based Sanctuary Wealth ousts CEO, but won’t say why – Indianapolis Business Journal

Indianapolis-based Sanctuary Wealth has eliminated its founder and CEO Jim Dickson for trigger, however the monetary advisory agency isn’t saying why.

Sanctuary disclosed final month that it had appointed an current board member, Adam Malamed, as CEO efficient instantly. That announcement didn’t embody any point out of Dickson.

Malamed beforehand served as chief working officer and board director of Ladenburg Thalmann, a community of wealth administration and different monetary companies corporations with 4,500 monetary advisors, roughly $200 billion in consumer property and an enterprise worth of $1.3 billion.

The CEO announcement got here only a day after Sanctuary had issued a press launch wherein Dickson introduced that the agency had opened a New York Metropolis workplace. The discharge included a photograph of Dickson and different Sanctuary executives at a ribbon-cutting.

Then, on March 3, Sanctuary filed a Kind U5—a disclosure that the Monetary Trade Regulatory Authority requires corporations to file inside 30 days after a person leaves the agency.

In response to an IBJ question, Sanctuary spokesman Donald Cutler mentioned the agency’s board had eliminated Dickson from each his CEO function and from the board of administrators for trigger, although he declined to offer the precise purpose.

“We don’t focus on former staff and the circumstances of their departure, nor can we offer extra data outdoors of what’s in a regulatory submitting,” Cutler mentioned in an e-mail. “Whatever the circumstances of Jim Dickson’s termination, this CEO change was created from a place of power. Sanctuary is rising, well-capitalized and within the strongest monetary place in its historical past. Over the previous 30 days, Sanctuary has accomplished a easy and seamless CEO transition, as we embark on the following stage of our development imaginative and prescient, which continues to prioritize the success of our associate corporations above all else.”

Dickson’s lawyer, Brian Hamburger of New Jersey-based Hamburger Legislation Agency LLC, additionally declined to say why Dickson was terminated.

“One month in the past, Mr. Dickson was requested to stroll away from the corporate which he proudly based,” Hamburger wrote in an e-mail. “All through his tenure, Mr. Dickson diligently served the corporate’s pursuits whereas disrupting a complete business. He has taken critically his obligations to serve the pursuits of all stakeholders and vehemently denies any allegations on the contrary. He left Sanctuary in an enviable place of power and desires his Sanctuary crew and associate corporations continued success. Like many entrepreneurs within the business of late, he relinquished management to well-capitalized traders. There are such a lot of constructive classes he has discovered from this expertise and, whereas Jim is unable to interact in dialogue presently, he’s trying ahead to a possibility to share them along with his many supporters.”

Dickson based Sanctuary in 2018 after the agency acquired Indianapolis-based David A. Noyes & Co., which in 2020 modified its title to Sanctuary Securities Inc. Earlier than founding Sanctuary, Dickson had spent the earlier 20 years at Merrill Lynch.

Italy-based Azimut Group acquired a 55% possession stake in Sanctuary in 2021. In Could, Sanctuary acquired a $175 million funding from New York-based Kennedy Lewis Funding Administration, a monetary agency that’s partially owned by Azimut.

Sanctuary Wealth has grown aggressively since its founding, and its community now contains associate corporations in 28 states with a cumulative $25 billion in property below advisement.

Sanctuary Wealth’s subsidiaries embody funding advisory agency Sanctuary Advisors LLC; broker-dealer Sanctuary Securities Inc.; Sanctuary Insurance coverage Options LLC; Sanctuary World Household Workplace LLC; and Sanctuary Industrial Mortgage Group LLC.

In 2021, regulators censured the agency and ordered it to pay greater than $530,000 in fines and restitution as a part of a settlement settlement over alleged rule violations on the agency. The alleged violations occurred when the agency operated as David A. Noyes & Co.