Cetera Advisor Networks’ president, who served during rocky stretch, to exit

Doug King will leave his post as president of Cetera Advisor Networks and the firm’s chief operating officer, Tom Taylor, will take his place.

King "did his part to help us through the last couple of years," says Cetera regional director, Dan May, CEO of AdvisorNet Financial in Dellwood, Minnesota.

King is departing nearly a year after Cetera emerged from a high-pressure bankruptcy forced by its 2104 private equity sale to nontraded REIT mogul Nicholas Schorsch, who expanded the IBD rapidly through acquisitions before presiding over the collapse of its parent company and its stock price.

The bankruptcy severed Cetera's ties with Schorsch.

Doug King-Formerly Cetera

The firm declined to answer questions about King's future plans beyond saying that he expects to "pursue different career interests." King did not return a call seeking comment.

The move comes after top-rated ex-LPL Financial adviser Ron Carson's decision to join the independent broker-dealer.

A spokesman for Cetera Financial Group, a network of seven IBDs that includes Cetera Advisor Networks, says Carson's arrival and King's departure "have nothing whatsoever to do with one another."

May seconded that view.

Tom Taylor-Cetera Advisor Networks

"Doug was very happy and proud that Ron was joining us," May says, adding that he and many other regional directors are "very sorry to see Doug go [and] wish him well."

Taylor is a leader and company veteran who is widely respected among Cetera advisers, according to May.

"The regional directors that I have spoken to are very pleased with Tom," he says.

'IT WAS JUST TIME'

"As far as leadership transitions go, we think this will be very seamless," another Cetera regional director John Brackett says in a statement. "As COO, Tom has been extremely active and engaged in both strategy-setting for Networks, and in getting to personally know each of the regional director-led firms, their leaders and the advisers they support."

Brackett is a partner at BAR Financial in San Francisco.

Within the network of Cetera IBDs, Cetera Advisor Networks focuses on supporting large offices of supervisory jurisdiction or independent producer groups.

"[King] is excited about a couple opportunities," May says, adding that, "It was just time for Doug."

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