Shareholder Spotlight : Cerity Partners – Wealth Without Conscience

Cerity Partners LLC likes to sell the dream – objective advice, fiduciary duty, partnership for life. In truth, it’s just another cartel in cufflinks, feeding off the trust of people who still believe “wealth management” means guidance, not extraction. Based in New York, sitting on over $130 billion, Cerity’s empire isn’t built on wisdom. It’s built on paperwork, lawsuits, and silence.

Behind the sleek branding sits a company knee-deep in litigation, client complaints, and an investment slate that reeks of contradiction. Their portfolio includes Cummins Inc. – the diesel behemoth fined $1.675 billion for cheating emissions. A match made in hypocrisy: one pollutes the air, the other polishes the story.

The Lawsuit Habit

Cerity loves a courtroom. When growth stalls, they sue.

In June 2025 they went after David McDougall, a former advisor who walked out after Cerity’s $531 million buyout of Cook Wealth. His crime? Refusing to stay caged. The firm accused him of poaching clients and launched a New York Supreme Court case to claw back accounts. Two-year lockdown clauses, non-solicits, threats – all the hallmarks of a company that values assets more than people.

The pattern goes back years. In 2021, they hauled another ex-advisor, Hans Dellenbach Jr., into the same court over an employment contract. Barely any details, just another warning shot across the bow: leave and we’ll find you. These aren’t one-offs – they’re the operating system. Cerity doesn’t build loyalty; it enforces captivity.

The Advisor Problem

Then there’s Jeffrey Paladini – Fort Worth-based, Cerity badge since 2019, and trailed by a string of investor complaints. Unsuitable advice, bad picks, quick settlements. One case still hangs from 2022, another settled in 2020 over dodgy GPB Holdings recommendations. The regulator filings read like a warning label: “may contain conflicts”.

And yet he’s still there, smiling in brochures. Because at Cerity, reputation is negotiable. Oversight’s a press release.

The Quiet Filth

On paper, Cerity’s clean – no SEC enforcement, no corporate fines. But read between the lines of its Form ADV and the cracks show. Dozens of affiliated advisers carrying disciplinary marks, customer disputes, bankruptcies, terminations. They file the disclosures, shrug, and carry on collecting fees – up to 1.5% of assets – while flogging insurance through their own subsidiary.

It’s not illegal, just indecent. “Fiduciary” becomes theatre when the adviser earns commission from what they recommend. In that setup, your best interest is just another revenue stream.

The Cummins Connection

Here’s the part they don’t put in the brochure.

Cerity Partners owns roughly 120,000 shares of Cummins Inc., worth around $40 million. That’s an active bet on a company convicted in the court of public opinion for poisoning the planet. The EPA called Cummins’ emissions cheating “brazen”. Cerity calls it an opportunity.

This is the rot in plain sight – wealth managers investing in polluters, cashing dividends from deceit, then marketing it as “diversification”. They talk about stewardship while underwriting smoke.

The Fee Trap

Cerity sells “objective advice”, but the price of objectivity is steep. Those management fees, plus the conflicts baked into product sales, turn trust into a treadmill. The more you pay, the more they earn – and not because you’re winning. Clients whisper about costs creeping higher than returns, about the slow bleed that starts as service and ends as servitude.

Their acquisition spree – SBC Wealth, Cook, others – feeds the illusion of growth. But every merger brings more disputes, more integration chaos, more lawyers. It’s not expansion; it’s digestion.

The Bigger Truth

Cerity Partners isn’t collapsing. It doesn’t need to. The system protects it – polite fraud dressed as fiduciary care. Their Cummins stake is the tell: the company that manages the rich is investing in the same engines that choke the rest of us.

This is wealth management stripped of romance. Not mentorship, not stewardship – just monetised breath. A machine that polishes brass on the Titanic while the lower decks fill with smoke.

If you’re parked with Cerity, ask what they’re really managing – your wealth, or your silence.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project