Lovell Minnick jumps into the roll-up game with the purchase of $2-billion wealth manager -- and a plan
Starting with Kanaly Trust, the Philly area private-equity firm plans to pick off sleepy, undersized trust companies and unleash their potential
Stephen Winks
Is Kanaly Trust now the RIA solution every broker with significant assets looks to for industry leadership in advisory services?
The Kanaly’s take fiduciary standing seriously and view their responsibility for a client relationship as lasting forever, beyond a client’s life. That is the ultimate in accountabilty and responsibility that no brokerage firm will acknowledge which is the essence of fiduciary standing that earns the trust and confidence of the investing public. That is why they call it the Trust business. There is never ending accountability and responsibility for recommendations—something the brokerage business is ill prepaired to support, but essential for client trust. Steve Kanaly has been an important figure in the emergence and development of NAPFA has long thought that Kanaly Trust had a bigger role to play in the larger financial services industry. Now Kanaly Trust may be that large and credible (highest rating that the OCC gives) player who will create large scale institutionalized support for fiduciary standing and advance (a)authenticated prudent investment process which makes advice safe to acknowledge, (b) advanced technology in support of transparency, a more sophisticated approach to portfolio construction, and continuous comprehensive counse all required for fiduciary standing, (c) work flow management and proper resourcing of the advisor, CAO and CIO functions so advice is scalable easy to execute and manage as a high margin business at the advisor level, and (d) expert advisory services support for each of the ten major market segments advisors serve, not presently possible in a brokerage format.This at last will make personalized expert advice safe, scalable, easy to execute and manage as a high margin business at the advisor level. By embracing modernity, Kanaly can show the brokerage industry how to streamline cost, expand its earnings multiple by a factor of three, provide and unprecedented level of investment and administrative counsel, exponentially increase advisor productivity, all while remaining a good stewart of client assets at a lower cost than expensive retail packaged products. The key is an expert authenticated prudent investment process in support of fiduciary standing based on objective, non-negotiable fiduciary criteria of statute, case law, regulatory opinion letters and 800 years of common law.
If Kanaly can resolve the scale challenge with out denigrating the fiduciary standard of care, which is achievable without cultural impediments, Lovell Minnick has knocked one out of the park and introduced a level of modernity not presently possible in a brokerage or RIA rollup format. Substance finally triumphs over hyperbole.
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STephen Winks
There are hundreds of $100 million (the average wirehouse broker) brokers out there that would kill to have access to large scale institutionalized supportfor fiduciary standing which is presently beyond their reach. In fact there are multi-billion brokers bigger than Kanaly who covet the Kanaly intellectual capital. Kanaly’s challenge is who do they envision as their target market from which it will exponentially grow its business.
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