Firm based in smaller market has eye on the wider world

In 1986, Thomas A. Muldowney was discouraged by what he was seeing in the financial services industry. Having worked as a consultant with what is now Amcore Financial Inc., he would often see sales representatives merely pushing product on investors. “The client would think he was getting sound financial planning, but really someone was just winning a sales contest,” he said. So that year, Mr. Muldowney set up his own financial planning firm, Savant Capital Management Inc. But within a few years, it was clear that his clients didn't just want financial planning, they wanted advice. In 1993, Mr. Muldowney brought on Brent R. Brodeski as a partner, and the firm began to manage clients' assets. In 1996, the firm brought on a third partner, Richard A. Bennett. The Rockford, Ill., firm's clients tend to be business owners and executives, Mr. Muldowney said. “Rockford is a working-class community,” he said. “Our clients were executives in some of the bigger firms in the area, or business owners that came into a liquidity event.” The average client has about $750,000 in investible assets.
Even though its roots are in a smaller city, Savant, which manages $1.18 billion in discretionary assets, has big aspirations. With 61 employees spread among five offices in Illinois and one in Madison, Wis., Savant has its sights set on growing, partly through acquisition, into “a regional, if not a national, firm,” Mr. Muldowney said. Specifically, the firm is in talks to purchase another adviser in Rockford, as well as advisers in Sterling, Ill., Milwaukee and Pennsylvania. “We are sniffing out a company on the East Coast where the primary adviser is older and the staff is young and they don't have the capability to build the business,” Mr. Muldowney said. The company hopes to make deals over the next 12 to 18 months, he said. It's a great time to grow, because the economy has made independent financial advice particularly important to clients, Mr. Muldowney said. “People in the banking, brokerage and insurance industry have absolutely discredited themselves,” he said. Savant doesn't want to be one of those advisory firms that relies on the personalities of its partners to bring in clients and carry the business, Mr. Muldowney said. That said, it does want to serve a wider range of clients. To that end, Savant, which now has an asset minimum of $500,000, is getting ready to open Savant Portfolios, which will provide financial advisory services to those with between $40,000 and $50,000 to invest. The exact minimum hasn't been decided, he said. “There are a lot of people who don't have large estates that still need advice,” Mr. Muldowney said.