Thomas Green Sells San Diego Brokers’ Firm

Thomas Green & Associates, the Los Angeles-based brokerage firm that acquired troubled San Diego Securities shortly after the October, 1987, stock market crash, has sold the local brokerage to a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company.

Terms of the sale, which was completed early this week, were not disclosed.

With the acquisition, Scottsdale-based Mason, Hunt & Co. has 95 employees, including 75 who are registered to sell securities. Of that number, 19 work in the offices of the firm that was formerly known as Thomas Green/San Diego Securities. The San Diego operation is now operating under the Mason, Hunt name.

Mason, Hunt acquired the San Diego brokerage in order to “become one of the premiere securities firms of the Southwest,” said Glenn Cushman, president of Scottsdale-based Mason, Hunt & Co.

National brokerage houses generally have abandoned the Southwest and created a “major void” that small, regional firms can fill, Cushman said.

Besides handling retail securities transactions, Mason, Hunt intends to bolster its corporate finance, merger and acquisition, and corporate valuation businesses, Cushman said.

The brokerage firm intends to eventually expand the size of its offices in San Diego and Arizona, Cushman said. Thomas Green & Associates is retaining a separate office in Rancho Bernardo, Cushman said.

Mason, Hunt made a previous, unsuccessful attempt to acquire San Diego Securities in 1987, Cushman said, after the San Diego firm was weakened by capital problems. At that time, “Thomas Green was able to move faster, and they got San Diego Securities,” Cushman said.

The Los Angeles-based brokerage firm acquired San Diego Securities just days after the stock market crash. At the time, company officials linked the company’s financial woes to a risky options trading program that backfired when the market crashed.