M&A
Fiduciary Trust Company International
The wholly-owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton has agreed to acquire wealth firm The Pennsylvania Trust Company.
Pennsylvania Trust offers personalised investment management, trust, estate, financial and tax planning, and tax preparation services.
Fiduciary Trust will provide Pennsylvania Trust with access to investment solutions and specialised services typically available only to institutional-sized investors.
The deal is expected to close in Franklin Templeton’s 2020 Q3.
Following the acquisition, Fiduciary Trust’s assets under management will be approximately $29bn (£22.1bn, €26.3bn), which includes the recently announced purchase of Athena Capital Advisors.
The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Cerity Partners
The financial advisory firm has merged with Los Altos, California-based wealth management firm Sullivan & Serwitz.
With this merger, Cerity Partners now manages approximately $26bn in assets.
S&S was co-founded by Robert Sullivan and Marshall Serwitz in 1989 and offers wealth management services, including financial planning and investment advice.
Cerity Partners currently has offices in Orange County and Los Angeles.
The team has started operating under the Cerity Partners’ brand.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Creative Planning
The registered investment adviser has acquired Stratford Consulting, an RIA firm based in Addison, Texas.
Stratford Consulting provides financial planning and investment management for clients.
It manages assets of approximately $618m.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
People moves
CWB Wealth Management
Matt Evans has been promoted to president and chief executive.
This follows the retirement of David Schaffner, who led the wealth business until announcing his retirement in early December.
Evans joined CWB’s wealth management team (then called Adroit Investment Management) in July 2010 as a private wealth adviser.
He recently served as vice president of strategy and corporate development.
Sandy Cove Advisors
The boutique wealth advisory firm has re-hired Kate Saltonstall as senior relationship manager and chief operating officer.
Saltonstall joins from Brown Advisory, where she was a portfolio manager.
She was previously chief investment officer at Sandy Cove Advisors.
William Blair
The global investment firm has bolstered its wealth arm with the hiring of financial advisers Eve Ellis and Nikolay Djibankov for its New York office.
They join from Morgan Stanley.
Known as the Matterhorn Group, the team runs two actively managed investment mandates for investors seeking both financial and social returns: the Gender Parity Portfolio, a gender lens strategy, and the Diversity & Inclusion Portfolio, which analyses 24 metrics related to diversity issues.
Raymond James & Associates
James Ducharme and Michael C Rowland have joined the firm in Melbourne, Florida.
They both come to Raymond James from UBS Financial Services, where they previously managed $194m in client assets.
They are joined by practice business manager Michael J Rowland and senior registered client services associates Jackie Bartosz and Sherry Staley.
The team operates as Rowland-Ducharme Wealth Management Group of Raymond James.
Bruderman Asset Management
Joshua Shoshan has joined the firm as senior managing director of private wealth management.
He most recently held senior positions at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
Diamond Hill Capital Management
The independent asset manager has named Lara Hoffmans as managing director of marketing.
Hoffmans joins Diamond Hill from Milwaukee-based Artisan Partners, where she served as director of investment communications since 2013.
Ashfield Capital Partners
The wealth firm has named Alison Bowe Diessner as a partner and portfolio manager.
Prior to joining Ashfield, Diessner served as a principal at Hall Capital Partners since 2013.
Regulatory news
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has obtained a court order authorising the distribution of over $63m to investors in connection with a previously filed action against Robert Morgan.
The New York residential and commercial real estate developer and two of his entities; Morgan Mezzanine Fund Manager and Morgan Acquisitions, were charged by the SEC with fraud for siphoning and misusing investor funds in May 2019.
The $63m represents the full return of funds to those who invested.
As alleged, Morgan financed his real estate development projects through, among other ways, the sales of securities to more than 200 retail investors, many used assets in their retirement accounts.
He reportedly told investors that their money would be used to improve multi-family properties.
Instead, as alleged in the complaint, Morgan and his entities diverted investor funds to pay earlier investors and made misrepresentations to later investors about prior fund performance.
