Steward Partners picks up Dynasty affiliate

Steward Partners, an eight-month old roll up firm backed by Raymond James Financial Services Inc., has recruited a $120 million team away from the Dynasty Financial Partners platform and network. The three advisers, Travis Tucker, Donald Brusca and Stacy Bazylinski, had formerly worked with Risk Paradigm Group, a Dynasty partner registered investment adviser in Boston. Risk Paradigm Group is remaining on the Dynasty platform. Mr. Tucker was unavailable for comment, but said in a statement that the team felt that they needed more support and structure. Steward provides partner firms with equity in the firm and upfront money. The firm also provides access to the Raymond James Financial Services platform in exchange for a share of the partner firm's revenue. "At the end of the day, we felt we needed a full service platform, combined with more structure," he said. "Steward provides us with an environment that has all the best attributes of independence, which we love, and many of the things that we miss from the wirehouse: like a branch manager to help us grow our business, handle day-to-day management, and free us up to concentrate on our clients." Dynasty, by contrast, offers firms an investment platform and other services for a fee. The relationship is similar to that of a custodian, and the RIA retains complete ownership and continues to file its own Form ADV with the Securities and Exchange Commission. When moves do occur, it has sometimes been because the team joining may not have been suited to the level of independence they initially chose, said Ron Edde, president and co-founder of career consulting firm Millennium Career Advisors. Long-time wirehouse advisers, for example, can be surprised by the additional responsibilities of running a business on their own when they move independent or join a small RIA. "If somebody thinks there's more synergy to being part of a bigger team, that's why they might want to do something like that," he said, speaking generally because he was not familiar with the motives in this instance. "Some do, some don't want that additional support." A spokeswoman for Dynasty, Sally Cates confirmed the move, but declined to comment further. An outside spokesman for Steward Partners, Tony Siriani, said that the move was about reuniting old partners from Smith Barney. All three had operated as the Tower Group at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management before going independent in 2012. Steward, with approximately $800 million in assets, has had success in recruiting ex-Morgan Stanley advisers. In May, the firm announced that it hired Morgan Stanley advisers Rodger Friedman and Joe Wong, who managed $170 million in client assets, in Washington, D.C. Dynasty has lost only a handful its affiliate clients, Mr. Edde estimates. Those who are happy with a higher level of independence generally stay with Dynasty, he said. There are 21 firms in Dynasty's network, according to Shirl Penney, who founded the firm in 2008. Ms. Cates declined to comment on the number of affiliate clients who have left the firm. The three advisers had brought in around $1.3 million in annual fees, according to an announcement from Steward Partners.