HighTower snatches longtime Morgan Stanley team

HighTower Advisors LLC announced today that it has snapped up another team of advisers, this time from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Strata Wealth Management Group, an advisory group in Rye, N.Y., that manages $500 million in assets, changed its affiliation Feb. 12 from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney to Chicago-based HighTower, according to a Strata Wealth Management partner, Roman Ciosek, who had been with Morgan Stanley for 14 years. Mr. Ciosek declined to reveal the terms of the acquisition, except to say that it was a stock and equity deal. A HighTower statement did not provide terms. Strata Wealth Management, which assumed its current structure in 2003, has had a long association with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. In fact, one of Strata's five partners, John Lang, 79, had been associated with Morgan Stanley for 40 years. Strata Wealth Management targets clients with at least $500,000 in investible assets. According to Mr. Ciosek, the partnership structure of HighTower, along with the firm's open-architecture investing format, its range of research sources and ability to use multiple custodians, were the key selling points. “It's the open architecture within HighTower, and it's being able to practice fiduciary responsibility,” he said. “It's also the ability to have three different custodians, because it gives us the flexibility and safety.” He also expects two more custodians to become available to HighTower advisers soon, he noted. Asked what Morgan Stanley Smith Barney's reaction was, Mr. Ciosek said, “Not good, as you can imagine, but we're dealing with that.” In an unrelated item: HighTower also announced today that it's beginning a beta launch of its open source portal, HighTower Open Source Toolkit. The portal will give advisers access to HighTower's multiple clearing and custodians through one website. The current custodians for the company HighTower are Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. and JPMorgan Clearing Corp.