Schorsh’s RCAP to Acquire Summit Financial Services

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor

Nicholas Schorsch

RCS Capital Corp. continues expanding its independent broker-dealer business by planning a nearly $50 million merger with Summit Financial Services of Florida.

RCAP, part of the New York-based real estate and financial services investment companies run by Nicholas Schorsch, said it will acquire Summit, an independent broker-dealer firm founded in 1993, for $49 million, or approximately $1.43 per share. The deal, subject to approval of Summit’s shareholders, is expected to close in early 2014.

William Kahane, CEO of RCAP, said in a news release that Summit is considered a top-tier broker dealer with more than $7.5 billion of assets under management.

Summit and its subsidiaries will continue to be run by current management and keep the Summit brand.

“We believe that RCAP’s commitment to maintain the separate identity and culture of its broker-dealers, while at the same time allowing them to leverage the resources of what we believe to be one of the industry’s fastest growing and most innovative firms, will result in the realization of our shared vision of providing even greater opportunities for Summit advisors,” Marshall Leeds, chairman of the board of directors, CEO & president of Summit, said in the release.

Summit has 305 financial advisors in 230 offices throughout the United States. It offers securities and investment services, insurance products as well as asset management and investor advisory services through a subsidiary. The addition of Summit is considered a new standalone-line of business that will complement RCAP’s other businesses, including wholesale broker-dealer, investment banking and capital markets services.

The proposed merger comes six weeks after RCAP announced two acquisitions for a reported $92.2 million – Investors Capital Holding Ltd. and Hatteras Funds Group. In early October, RCAP agreed to acquire ICH, an independent broker-dealer and investment advisory firm, for $52.2 million, or $7.35 per share. Two days earlier, RCAP said it was buying Hatteras Funds Group, which has more than $2 billion under management across multiple alternative investment funds, for at least $40 million through a newly formed subsidiary of RCS Advisory Services L.L.C.

RCAP entered the independent broker-dealer arena in June when it announced it was acquiring First Allied Holdings, Inc., which together with The Legend Group has about 1,500 independent financial advisors who control approximately $32 billion in assets for 300,000 clients. That deal closed in late September. The price was not disclosed but RCAP reportedly made an initial commitment of $200 million.

Schorsch has shaken up the REIT industry with about $12 billion in acquisitions this year. In late October, he announced American Realty Capital Properties Inc., was buying one of its biggest competitors, Cole Real Estate Investment, Inc., for $11.2 billion.  When that deal closes in 2014, ARCP will become the world’s largest net-lease REIT worth about $21.5 billion.

One of the acquisitions ARCP made earlier this year was the purchase of net-lease restaurant properties from GE Capital. Schorsch said Monday Glenn Kindred, formerly of GE Capital and Trustreet Properties, had joined ARCP as executive vice president of its Restaurants Division and will oversee the company’s growing portfolio of restaurant and quick service assets.