W.P. Carey’s Goldberg straightens out adviser misconceptions about DOL fiduciary rule
Executive has been listening to advisers’ worries for months, and finds serious confusion remains about responsibilities under the new regulation
Oct 31, 2016 @ 12:42 pm | By Bruce Kelly | Investment News
Mark Goldberg, president of investment management at W.P. Carey Inc., has been listening for months to financial advisers’ worries about the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary rule, which seeks to raise investment advice standards in retirement accounts. Mr. Goldberg — who is also chairman of its wholesaling broker-dealer, Carey Financial — knows of what he speaks: As chair of the Investment Program Association, he testified before the Department of Labor in 2015 about the rule, and later followed up with the DOL in two separate meeting.
And he knows the world of independent broker-dealers; last decade, before joining W.P. Carey, he was president and CEO of Royal Alliance Associates Inc., one of the broker-dealers that currently make up the Advisor Group.
Bruce Kelly: What is one of the most confusing aspects of the new rule?
Mark Goldberg: I have a keen sense of the apprehension many financial advisers must feel and they focus on this. Anyone who offers investment advice to an IRA holder, it doesn’t matter if the compensation is level-fee, fixed-fee or commission, is a fiduciary.
About half the advisers out there that think as long as they charge a fixed fee for a planning service or a level fee for a fee-based model, they don’t have to do anything different and their accountability and their liability hasn’t changed. If you are in the business and paid in any way for investment advice and you handle qualified accounts, you are a fiduciary and are accountable.
