Wachovia team defects to Riverfront

Among the 10 joining Riverfront Investment Group LLC.today are five new partners of the firm.

Ten asset management and operational professionals have left Wachovia Securities LLC for Riverfront Investment Group LLC.

Among the 10 joining Riverfront today are five new partners of the firm: Tim Anderson, chief fixed income officer; Paul Louie, director of small and mid-cap portfolio management; Bill Ryder, director of quantitative strategy; Sam Turner, director of large-cap portfolio management; and Marc Cheatham, director of technology and operations.

Richmond, Va.-based Riverfront was formed in April by former Wachovia chief investment officer Michael Jones, former chief investment strategist Rod Smyth, former chief equity strategist Doug Sandler, and Pete Quinn, who ran the retail operations at Wachovia.

Riverfront now has “the lion’s share of the talent from the [old Wachovia] Advisory Services Group,” Mr. Quinn said.

The hires were “part of our arrangement with Wachovia,” he added.

The new team members, plus Riverfront’s founders, had been working together to manage assets in Wachovia’s Compass program, a separate account service with low minimums, Mr. Quinn said.

Compass is now being managed by another group within Wachovia, he said.

The latest departures from St. Louis-based Wachovia follows the loss last month of Mark Keller, former president and chief investment officer at Gallatin Asset Management Inc. of St. Louis, who left to become chief executive and chief investment officer at Confluence Investment Management LLC, also of St. Louis.

Gallatin is the advisory unit of A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., which merged with Wachovia last year. Late last year, Gallatin was folded into Evergreen Investments, the asset management division of Wachovia Corp. of Charlotte, N.C.
Teresa Dougherty, a spokeswoman at Wachovia Securities, declined to comment.