Dallas firms hope to benefit from industry turmoil
Painful as this month's watershed Wall Street restructuring may be for some, independent wealth management firms in Dallas think that they are in a position to benefit from the woes that affect their wirehouse competitors.
Painful as this month’s watershed Wall Street restructuring may be for some, independent wealth management firms in Dallas think that they are in a position to benefit from the woes that affect their wirehouse competitors.
“It’s very positive for us,” said Eric Bennett, chairman and chief executive of the private wealth management division of Tolleson Wealth Management. “Large financial service companies have been losing credibility and losing trust. Larger is not better anymore.”
Executives at Dallas firms say that they expect to attract more clients and financial advisers as a result of the takeover of large Wall Street firms, such as New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.
“I certainly think more clients are trying to decide if they are comfortable with their current adviser,” said Chuck Thoele, managing director of Robertson Griege & Thoele, who declined to disclose the firm’s assets under management. “If an institution has gone through a significant event, clients and advisers will be more inclined to consider other options, and looking at independent firms makes sense.”
Lori Bensing, managing director in Dallas for the Stanford Financial Group of Houston, said that she was confident that her firm, which has $1.4 billion in assets under management in Dallas, “will attract advisers who like the fact that we don’t have headline risk and [who] don’t want to work for a bank.”
In fact, she added, Stanford is in the process of adding 5,000 square feet of space to its office in the upscale Crescent Court office complex near downtown Dallas.
“The timing is perfect,” she said. ‘We’re ready to accommodate them.”
San Francisco-based Presidio Financial Partners LLC, with total assets of $4.4 billion under management, is also actively recruiting for its Dallas office, said managing director Colin Carter.
“We’re seeing a huge dislocation, and a lot of people will be moving around. I hope [the recent events on Wall Street] creates opportunities for us to look at like-minded people,” Mr. Carter said.
Nonetheless, he said, Presidio is determined to grow “methodically,” adding wealth managers who are comfortable with the firm’s “solution-driven” business model.
Presidio’s consulting fee is its “single source of revenue,” Mr. Carter said. “We are a risk management firm above everything else.”
Independent firms that grow as a result of Wall Street’s September swoon will also face considerable challenges, said Jeffrey Rupp, managing director of Bluffview Wealth Management LP, which has $1 billion under management in Dallas.
As independent firms get bigger and have more assets to manage, they will need to spend more on “intellectual capital,” he said.
The average independent has “a tough time staying up to speed” on fast-changing and complex investment products and trends, Mr. Rupp said.
Honing their investment skills to stay current and satisfy more sophisticated clients will be a “huge challenge,” he said.
E-mail Charles Paikert at [email protected].
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