The latest mergers, acquisitions and corporate actions in and around the North American wealth management industry.

Planet Wealth, a firm that says it is “democratizing” wealth management, has announced that it has started the process of acquiring a broker-dealer. 

Planet Wealth is aiming to become an investment bank. Adding broker-dealer capabilities will provide “massive value for the company's community,” the firm said, enabling its members to buy and sell securities on a variety of exchanges directly from the Planet Wealth platform.

The firm said that achieving registered broker-dealer status will give it the ability to underwrite security offerings generated by its clients. Planet Wealth members will be able to form businesses, price and market new security offerings tied to their investment ideas and sell those securities to interested parties to raise funding capital.

"Our goal is to empower everyone who wants control over their financial destiny without relying on anyone else to make it happen… even us," Greg Sossaman, Planet Wealth chief executive, said. "We're turning the Wall Street paradigm on its head. There are so many investors who have felt locked out, priced out and frozen out of traditional financial markets for so long, but those days are ending. Planet Wealth will soon offer everything you need and everything Wall Street wants to sell you, but at a fraction of the cost and on your terms – not theirs."

Once a purchase agreement is entered into and regulatory conditions are met, Planet Wealth will operate as a broker-dealer “almost immediately,” it said.

Based in Memphis, Tennessee, the company was launched on July 4, 2021.

Sanctuary
Sanctuary Wealth has added New Jersey-based Questar Capital to its embrace.

Questar has offices in Paramus, New Jersey. Its founding partners, Gerry Spitzer and Richard Reyle, have been together as a wealth management team for 30 years and are joined by partners Michael Stabinski and Toby Sicango, as well as registered operations manager Alex Davis.

Formerly affiliated with UBS Financial Services, the team has $850 million in client assets under management and is Sanctuary's third New Jersey-based team.

"The New York City area, including New Jersey, Long Island and southern Connecticut, is one of the most important markets in the country, and one that Sanctuary is aggressively cultivating, by opening our new office on Madison Avenue and recruiting great teams from around the tri-state area," Jim Dickson, CEO and founder of Sanctuary Wealth, said.