The only wealth management firm to go public in 2023 has run into some speed bumps along the way, but its CEO says the company's structure has created a road forward for the long haul.
In a detailed discussion last week, just months after New York-based AlTi Tiedemann Global's
The merger of U.S. multifamily office Tiedemann Advisors with international family office Alvarium and investment management firm Tiedemann Investment Group received an enterprise
"The decision to go public was one that everyone has an opinion on," Tiedemann said at a summit held in New York by investment banking firm
"We understand all the complications, all the risks of going public, the volatility, the information, all that comes with this," he continued. "But the importance of being a permanent entity and taking control of our destiny and having it be in a structure that can continue to equitize employees — which is getting harder and harder as a private company, more expensive to do as a private company — and to be committed to being global. This was something that, as we weighed the pros and the cons, the industrial logic, the permanence and being committed to being a global business overweighted everything else."
The listing got delayed by falling stock values amid high inflation and concerns about a recession, as well
In its
The SPAC structure enabled AlTi to merge three businesses into one public entity and gave its executives a "very, very long" regulatory review period to gain an understanding of how best to integrate the firms across their 22 locations on three continents, Tiedemann said.
Tiedemann's approach at the helm drew praise at Republic's event from one of the industry's top dealmakers, Liz Nesvold, the president of $30-billion multifamily office Cresset. She noted Tiedemann's charitable efforts as the chairman of the board for the poverty-fighting nonprofit organization
"There's so much more to this man, so much more to this organization than meets the eye," Nesvold said. "It's about the experience for colleagues coming up through AlTi. It is about making an impact on our communities. And it's about doing the right thing. So, in an environment where we're seeing these crazy things happen to organizations that we would never have envisioned falling or becoming part of other, larger organizations, here represents a man who's going to lead this company into the public domain to show that there are opportunities for other wealth managers to be recognized in the public forum."
AlTi traces its roots as a company back to 1980, when Tiedemann's father launched its asset management arm. The firm's wealth unit has $43 billion in assets under advisement, with ultrahigh net worth clients that have spent an average of at least nine years with the firm, according
"We have the ability to compete against global banks," Tiedemann said. "We have the ability to serve clients in any currency, regulatory jurisdiction and at a very, very high level."
In 2022, the company's revenue slipped 9% to $240 million due to the impact of falling asset values, while its net income tumbled to $10 million from $76 million because of the market impacts and the cost of going public. For the year to date, AlTi's stock value has fallen by more than 50% to about $5 per share. Tiedemann's team is focusing on the longer term.
"A goal which had been one of our goals since the very beginning is to really create a permanent entity — not have a practice or a partnership that ultimately is subsumed in another business — to really create an enduring business beyond the founders' lives and the people operating the business today," Tiedemann said.
