Captrust adds $3B Truist team as Hoge bets on employee equity 

Brett Hoge could have taken private equity money and launched his own firm. Instead, the Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based advisor brought his $3 billion team to Captrust Financial Advisors, drawn largely by the chance for his staff to own equity in the mega-RIA giant.

The Hoge-Barrett Group, which had operated within Truist Investment Services, has joined Raleigh-based RIA Captrust, which oversees some $1.3 trillion in total assets under management and advisement. Hoge’s 13-person team includes five advisors, seven support staff and a portfolio manager covering $3 billion in client assets. Also joining Captrust are advisors Alex Barrett, Josh Crane, Aaron Spivey, David Peterson, and Harry Cross.

“I think employee ownership creates a pretty powerful alignment. We wanted to invest alongside people and leaders we trust, which is Captrust, while creating some ownership opportunities for the team,” Hoge said in an interview with InvestmentNews. “Everybody's on the same mission to serve clients for the next 10, 20, or 30 years.” 

Equity appeal

Every Captrust employee has a pathway to equity, and just over 68% of the firm’s more than 2,000 employees currently hold a stake, according to Scott Matheson, Captrust’s managing director and head of client solutions.  

"We put our money where our mouth is in terms of our equity. We share equity as a part of the consideration of acquisitions, so that we are in fact partners from day one,” Matheson told InvestmentNews. 

Outside investors hold significant stakes in Captrust too. Carlyle took a minority growth stake in the firm in 2023 and has a seat on the parent company’s board. GTCR, which first invested in 2020, still indirectly owns more than 25% of Captrust, according to its SEC disclosures. 

Equity is a recruiting lever across the advisor industry. Schwab research found that larger RIAs were more likely to offer equity to incoming advisors. 

Passing on private equity

Hoge started his career in 1999 and worked at Wachovia Securities before joining Scott & Stringfellow, a Truist predecessor, in 2008, according to his regulatory record. He said he weighed launching his own independent firm backed by private equity.  

“We looked at obviously a lot of options. Could have had private equity back myself. We obviously have enough scale as a team, but I wanted to go to a platform that was ready for us, was ready to deliver the resources that the clients want,” said Hoge. 

Building operations from scratch as an independent would have delayed the resource boost he wanted clients to notice right away.  

“I didn't want a client to have more of the same or just in a different look. I wanted them to immediately feel the impact of the resources, capabilities, everything that Captrust is able to provide us,” added Hoge, who turns 50 in March and said his team’s youngest advisor is around 30 years old. 

Hoge is registered both with Captrust and with CapFinancial Securities, its affiliated broker-dealer. Captrust’s SEC disclosure brochure says wealth-focused advisors generally spend less than 10% of their time on brokerage work.

“I try to find talent and then coach them and train them,” said Hoge. “We're open for business. We're going to continue to grow the existing client base we've got, so to do that we've got to keep providing more talented advisors that can serve the growing complexity and needs for clients.” 

Captrust has been busy in 2026. Last month it absorbed two Long Island wealth management firms with $1.2 billion in combined client assets. Earlier in the year it added Meritage Portfolio Management, Alpha Cubed Investments and Stillwater Capital Advisors. 

Most of Captrust’s roughly $1.3 trillion in assets is non-discretionary retirement plan money. Individual and high-net-worth clients accounted for about $96 billion at the end of 2025, according to its Form ADV. 

Home court advantage 

Hoge-Barrett's Winston-Salem office is Captrust’s seventh in North Carolina, where it has more than 580 employees, including 111 advisors.  

“North Carolina has great demographic trends from a standpoint of business friendliness and lifestyle, particularly post-COVID,” said Matheson. “You've had a lot of people move here.” 

North Carolina drew more people from other states than any other state in the Census Bureau’s latest estimates, the state’s budget office said. North Carolina grew by nearly 150,000 people in 2025, making it the state with the third-largest total population increase after Texas and Florida. 

“There's fair state tax regimes and affordability that people care about, in addition to climate and livability,” said Matheson. “So it's a growing state, which means that there's people moving here who are potential clients that we can serve and help.”