Steward Companions World Advisory, an employee-owned partnership of impartial advisory corporations, has added Ensign Wealth Companions, a four-person group in Farmington, Utah, with almost $500 million in consumer property. Ensign Wealth Companions was beforehand with Wells Fargo Advisors Monetary Community.
The group is the third breakaway to return onto Steward’s BNY Mellon | Pershing custodial platform up to now two months, bringing Steward’s whole property with Pershing to $1 billion.
Steward moved in direction of a multi-custodial mannequin in 2021 when it introduced they’d constructed an onramp to be Goldman Sachs’ first RIA custodial consumer. Previous to that, Raymond James had lengthy been its sole custodian.
Final November, Steward added Pershing as a custodian. H.L. Wiginton Capital Administration, a four-person group with round $220 million, joined earlier this 12 months from Cambridge Funding Analysis Advisors, changing into the primary group to affix on the Pershing platform.
Jim Gold, CEO and co-founder of Steward, mentioned a multi-custodial platform gives advisors with choices applicable for his or her agency. Of the six groups which have joined Steward to this point this 12 months, three have chosen Raymond James and three have gone with Pershing.
“I believe that is what we anticipated as a traditional cadence is every custodial will enchantment to totally different advisors, and this offers them the choice to choose versus us having a single custodian and making an attempt to make that alternative work for them,” he mentioned, “And typically that wasn’t potential.”
The 2 custodians are structurally totally different, he added. Pershing brings a giant banking group with BNY Mellon, and the agency might enchantment to advisors who see advantages in associating with the New York-based wealth administration agency.
Launched in 2013 with one advisor and round $100 million in property underneath administration, Steward has since grown to greater than $26 billion in consumer property throughout greater than 350 companions, primarily by the recruitment of breakaway wirehouse advisors.
However the make-up of recruited groups has began to vary. Gold mentioned two of the six groups that joined this 12 months have come from impartial dealer/sellers.
Steward is at present engaged on providing an affiliation mannequin the place advisors can drop their FINRA license and solely do advisory enterprise underneath the agency’s RIA. Whereas the agency has advisors which are solely fee-based, they maintain FINRA licenses.
Constructing a multicustodial platform has “opened up the floodgates” for recruiting, mentioned Chief Advertising Officer Greg Banasz, and far of the funding Steward has raised over the previous few years will go towards recruiting new groups
Cynosure Group turned Steward’s first personal fairness backer when it took a minority stake within the agency in 2019.
In 2021, The Pritzker Group invested $100 million, whereas Steward added the 1099 affiliation mannequin and accomplished its solely mergers and acquisitions deal so far. The identical 12 months, the agency bought Umpqua Investments and introduced brokerage companies in-house, opening the platform to a number of custodians and extra funding choices.
Within the fall of 2022, the agency acquired a $140 million credit score facility led by various funding agency Apogem Capital, with funding from Manulife Funding Administration and a personal credit score fund run by investor Cynosure Group.