Departure of Dean Manjuris won’t impact growth goals, Richardson says

It’s been a year of change for wealth management firm Richardson Wealth Ltd., with the latest development being the sudden departure of vice-chair Dean Manjuris.

Manjuris was appointed to a newly created role in April 2021 — joining the firm after decades with BMO in senior management positions — and a main part of his job was recruiting talent to help the firm grow.

Manjuris’s departure was noted in a brief internal memo this week by Kish Kapoor, president and CEO of Richardson Wealth parent company RF Capital Group Inc.

“Dean Manjuris gave us notice that he will be terminating his employment contract with Richardson Wealth prior to its expiration,” the memo said.

Yet, the statement was optimistic, saying that even though Manjuris was with the firm for only a “short time” (roughly five months), “his contributions were many. Dean provided his valued advice on numerous topics and contributed to our recruiting efforts.”

The firm had unveiled what it refers to as a “bold growth strategy” in May — following Manjuris’s arrival — and that was preceded by Richardson Wealth signalling in January that it was embracing its new name and mapping out a strategy to leverage the firm’s scale, capabilities and reputation.

In a statement emailed to Advisor’s Edge on Friday, the firm said Manjuris’s move “has not changed our goal to triple assets under administration to $100 billion. We have an exceptional leadership team and considerable operating momentum.”

Alongside posting “record results in nearly every aspect of our business, we attracted top talent to our board and leadership team, we announced a game-changing digital platform partnership with Fidelity, and our corporate development team has built a record pipeline of $15 billion,” the firm added.

As such, “We are confident that our growth strategy is not only actionable but more importantly achievable.”

In July, RF Capital reported a net loss of $1.9 million in the second quarter — though that was an improvement over the $7.5-million net loss reported in Q1 — and that coincided with record assets under administration of $34 billion for the quarter ended June 30.

At the same time, Richardson Wealth’s revenue in Q2 was $76.3 million, compared to $80.6 million in Q1 and $61.7 million in the second quarter of 2020, while Richardson’s advisory teams had average AUA of $217 million.

Other 2021 staff shifts occurred this year, and included: the June addition of Christina Clement as Richardson Wealth’s vice-president of practice growth and execution; the hiring in March of Julie Burnham, Richardson Wealth’s new communications head; the addition of Tim Wilson as RF Capital Group’s chief financial officer in January; and, perhaps most notably, former Richard Wealth president and CEO Andrew Marsh’s decision to step down at the end of March.

A more recent hire was the September appointment of Natalie Bisset as senior vice-president and head of corporate development for Richardson Wealth — another newly created position tied to recruitment initiatives, strategic partnerships and acquisitions.

As for further innovation, Richardson Wealth also struck a deal with Envestnet in June to provide a unified managed account platform and portfolio management tools for the firm’s advisors.