Steward Partners hails strong start to 2024 recruiting

The hybrid RIA expects its $1 billion haul of new client assets in the first quarter will set it up for a repeat of its robust 2023.

Steward Partners is celebrating a strong beginning to 2024, with more than $1 billion in new client assets landing in the hybrid RIA’s network.

The independent financial services firm, fully owned by its employees, unveiled the results of its vigorous recruiting drive in the first quarter.

That effort saw it acquire a new office in Nashville, Tennessee, with the eight-advisor team behind Seven Arrows Financial being affiliated with the firm under a 1099 contract through its RCS platform.

The firm got another foothold in Kennesaw, Georgia, where it added Frank Smith and Patrick Connoly as wealth managers and W-2 employees.

Steward Partners also welcomed a number of other W-2 employees in the Eastern US, including Christine Munn, an alum of Overbrook Management, who joins as a managing director and wealth manager. In Mobile, Alabama, three new partners at Lynn-Whitmore Wealth Management are coming in under W-2 contract.

“Steward Partners’ dynamic start to 2024 is a reflection of our commitment to consistently identify and actively pursue best-in-class advisory teams that help expand capabilities and propel firm growth,” Jim Gold, the firm’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement Friday.

In a February interview with InvestmentNews, Gold shared his sunny growth outlook for Steward Partners, saying “a ton of recruits” means the firm’s “teed up to have another record year.”

Gold highlighted Steward Partners’ rich menu of affiliation models as a central piece of its proposition to advisors, which Jeff Gonyo, the firm’s divisional president, southern division, and head of recruiting, also emphasized.

“We believe that advisors should feel empowered when they come to our firm, and we are proud of the fact that we can encapsulate that through offering different affiliation channels such as W2, 1099, and RIA-only models,” Gonyo said in Friday’s statement.

The influx of new business in early 2024 builds on Steward Partners’ robust run of recruitment last year, which included landing a former Wells Fargo duo managing $275 million in assets in November, and an October move involving an ex-Hightower team in Florida.

The firm expects to replicate that 2023 record, which added $5.5 billion in new assets and $40 million in revenue, as it looks forward to more substantial M&A activity in the second quarter.