NorthStar Financial Services Group is to rebrand itself and its subsidiary companies under the Orion name.
NorthStar, which is backed by private equity firm TA Associates, is the parent company of RIA technology platform Orion Advisor Services, Tamp FTJ FundChoice, ETF strategist CLS Investments, and RIA custodian Constellation Trust.
In September this year NorthStar will take on the name Orion Advisor Solutions. Orion Advisor Services will rebrand to Orion Advisor Tech. FTJ FundChoice will become Orion Portfolio Solutions. CLS Investment and Constellation Trust are both to retain their current names but will incorporate the Orion logo into their branding.
The move will also result in the formation of a new leadership team at the parent company level, made up of executives at the subsidiaries.
Eric Clarke, CEO of Orion Advisor Services, will be named chief executive of NorthStar, or what will be called Orion Advisor Solutions.
Dean Cook and Ryan Beach, currently chief executive and president of FTJ Fund Choice, respectively, will be named president and chief operations officer of the parent company.
Daniel Applegarth, currently chief financial officer of Orion Advisor Services, will be CFO.
Kylee Beach, general counsel of Orion Advisor Services, is to be general counsel.
All of them will also keep their current positions at the subsidiary companies.
‘What we’re trying to do is bring our teams together as one company and truly be able to leverage the best of the technology business and the Tamp business when it comes to serving our advisor clients,’ Eric Clarke, chief executive of Orion Advisor Services, said.
‘We’re not just bringing the companies under one brand but we’re also bringing the business together so that our advisor and enterprises can do business with one firm and we can provide a consistently great experience.’
Both Cook and Clarke plan to aggressively pursue acquisitions to boost the company’s position in the market place.
‘Dean and I are looking at about a half a dozen different acquisitions right now,’ Clarke said. ‘We look at a lot of businesses and we have to make sure that they're a fit with both the vision and the culture that we have as well as that it makes financial sense.’
Cook said bringing the firm's tech and Tamp businesses closer together would result in new offerings.
‘What I’m excited about, with the combinations of tech and tamp, is the solutions that we’re going to be able to provide that we hadn’t been able to do in the past,' he said.
‘From this group, you’re going to see a lot around tax optimization, direct indexing and household rebalancing, which are all things that we’re going to be able to do.’
NorthStar Financial acquired FTJ FundChoice in the second quarter of 2018 from private equity firm Seaport Capital.
