By Rebecca Ungarino and Angela Palumbo
The well-known tech stock analyst Dan Ives has left Wedbush, where he led tech research efforts and turned into one of the most familiar faces on Wall Street through his consistently bullish company coverage.
Ives is leaving the firm after eight years, Wedbush said in a press release on Wednesday afternoon. The "transition will mark the next phase of growth for the firm's technology research and investment banking franchise," the firm, which is privately held, said.
Ives has held multiple roles outside of his position as a senior research analyst. This past January, Barron's reported on his broad and overlapping interests across the tech industry.
Ives has served as the face of two Wedbush exchange-traded funds, an adviser to Zeta Global Holdings, a publicly traded marketing-tech company, and, at the time of the article, as chairman of a separate tech company.
Ives and Zeta didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
At the time of the article, the roles weren't regularly disclosed in his research reports and potentially created conflicts of interest, according to Wall Street experts. Ives began adding disclosures about his roles to social media posts after Barron's article.
In March, Ives stepped down from another role: chairman of Eightco Holdings, a digital-assets firm whose shares are trading at 71 cents. The investor and cryptocurrency bull Tom Lee joined its board to fill the vacancy created by Ives' exit, Eightco said at the time.
Ives' last day at Wedbush was Wednesday. In an interview with CNBC, he said he was leaving to start "a merchant bank aimed at combining research, advisory, capital raising and investing."
Ives notified Wedbush earlier on Wednesday that he would be leaving the firm, a spokeswoman for Wedbush told Barron's, and his replacement hasn't been named.
"It's a natural step for Dan to seize an entrepreneurial opportunity and I wish him success and look forward to future partnerships with his new venture," Gary Wedbush, the firm's CEO, said in the press release.
One day before notifying Wedbush of his departure, Ives initiated coverage of Elon Musk's SpaceX stock with an Outperform rating.
A CNBC anchor asked Ives on Wednesday why he chose to initiate coverage of a stock one day before leaving Wedbush: "From a timing perspective, you never could coordinate these things," Ives said.
Write to Rebecca Ungarino at rebecca.ungarino@barrons.com and Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com
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