Former head of private client unit at Thomas Weisel Partners joins an RIA

After a year spent weighing options, a wealth management star in San Francisco has landed with Argos Wealth Advisors LLC.

Jeff L. Handy, 45, is the former partner and head of private client services for investment bank Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco [which was swallowed by Stifel Nicholas subsequent to Handy’s departure]. He left a year ago after he became frustrated with how his duties were evolving away from his true calling.

“I was tired,” he says. “I was managing a lot of people. I was getting further away from managing clients.”

A Stifel spokeswoman had not responded to a request for a comment by the time of publication of this article.

At his new company, his title is simply “financial advisor” — which implies a role that he says he relishes.

“I want people to be comfortable with wealth so they can do good things for society,” he says.

Over the past year, he talked to 10 different firms — some RIAs and some not.

Sense of foreboding

“As I was interviewing I got that heavy sense of foreboding,” he says. “I’d see they’re mostly interested in making their numbers. I’d walk out [from the interview], and I’d be tired.”

Napa, Calif.-based Argos, a three-year-old RIA that manages $500 million and oversees $1.3 billion of assets, was different. Its founder, Michael Russo, assured him that the new firm was geared toward putting the clients first.

Russo even puts into writing in the company’s contracts with clients that there are no conflicts of interests for clients to worry about. [Russo says that his lawyers advised against this move. He did it anyway because it keeps him on heightened alert for the conflicts.]

Prior to joining Thomas Weisel Partners, Handy was managing director and senior manager for the fixed income and wealth management group of Montgomery Securities from 1994 through 2000. It was there that he overlapped with his new boss, Russo, who started that wealth management unit.

Headcounts of 100

After he moved to Thomas Weisel, where he worked for nine years, Handy helped to create, develop and oversee its investment consulting department, which employed financial advisors managing over $10 billion in assets for institutions and high net worth individuals.

Handy built up the wealth management units for both Montgomery and Weisel from a handful of people to headcounts of 100 or more.

At both those jobs, he says his investment bank employers started out with a pure mission of choosing the best asset managers on behalf of clients. That mandate shifted as the units gained in size and they introduced their own products to the mix. It was because of similar scenarios that Russo left his previous employers. See: Former wealth manager for Montgomery Securities and Presidio Financial is remaking his [big] practice in wine country as an RIA.

“Low and behold you get big again and – boom – you say: I’m going to start a fund,”’ he says. “The products are unique but you have to go to your clients with a mixed message. You’re walking down a path of not being what you say you are.”

Tainted objectivity

By having their own funds, investment banks become conflicted because they make more money by having them used in place of outside managers. Most investment banks run wealth management businesses in this manner but this taints their claims of objectivity in choosing the best managers and makes their claims of using “open architecture” less credible.

Jeff Roush: Jeff Handy has the
ability to relate well with ultra-affluent
clients and to the advisors of
the ultra-affluent.

It was Handy’s orientation toward putting clients first that made Michael Russo, CEO of Argos Wealth Advisors, want to hire him.

“We hired him for his character,” he says. “If he brings clients, it’ll be an additional benefit.”

Jeffrey A. Roush, the company’s chief operating officer, says he hopes Handy will also be able to attract good advisory talent to Argos.

“He’ll work with other advisors he brings in,” he says. “He’s got an excellent pedigree and the ability to relate to ultra-affluent [clients] and the advisors of the ultra-affluent.”

Santa Monica

Handy, who will work primarily from Los Angeles [as well as San Francisco and Napa] and lives in a beachfront apartment in Santa Monica, says he plans to bring a client following.

“I do have clients that are looking for somewhere to be,” he says. “People are coming to me and saying: where are you going to be?”

Handy plans to begin contacting some of these people during the next week. Until now, he’s been doing intensive due diligence on behalf of his new boss.

Argos invests substantial portions of its capital with emerging managers.

“I’m interviewing and looking at our managers with a fine-toothed comb,” he says. “When I feel comfortable, I’ll start talking to clients.”