Convergent winds down institutional wealth unit as $4.9B RIA leaves

Focus Financial Partners has landed one of its biggest RIA partner firms yet with the addition of LVW Advisors of Pittsford, N.Y. — a pickup that also signals the wind-down of Convergent Wealth Advisors’ institutional unit.
LVW manages about $4.9 billion in assets for high-net-worth and institutional investors. “I have a very strong vision of how to serve my clients, and I felt the way to do it was to build a platform around our clientele,” said LVW founder Lori Van Dusen, and formerly co-head of Convergent’s institutional group.
The separation from Convergent was “amicable,” she said.
But Ms. Van Dusen’s exit marks the second big departure from Convergent this month. On Sept. 28, an institutional team headed by George Dunn left Convergent for the Global Institutional Consulting group of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The group reportedly managed $2.7 billion.
Mr. Dunn and Ms. Van Dusen co-headed Convergent’s institutional unit. Convergent spokeswoman Laura Smith said the pair managed $4.7 billion — a number that does not jibe with figures offered by Focus and Merrill. Ms. Smith could not account for the higher asset figures cited by the two firms.
Either figure, however, makes up a sizable slice of Convergent’s $14 billion in assets under management. But Ms. Smith said the departures were planned and “in the interests of everybody involved.”
The institutional unit did not contribute a significant amount of revenue to Convergent, said Steve Lockshin, the firm’s chief executive.
The firm will “continue to service select institutions,” with the majority of its clientele being wealthy individuals, Ms. Smith said. She also noted: “Our business remains very strong. We’re adding clients faster than ever before.”
Rudy Adolf, founder and chief executive of Focus, would not confirm whether the LVW partnership is the biggest deal yet for his aggregator firm.
“It depends on how you look at size,” Mr. Adolf said. “Lori advises and consults on about $5 billion, so this is obviously a very significant asset base.”
Focus now has partnership stakes in 24 advisory firms that manage more than $45 billion in total.
The LVW deal is the latest in what looks to be an accelerating string of deals for Focus.
Last month, the aggregator firm took a stake in two RIAs, Hufford Financial Advisors LLC of Indianapolis, which manages about $900 million, primarily for dental practices; and Boston-based Colony Group LLC, which has $1.3 billion in assets. In January, Focus partnered with Pettinga Financial Advisors LLC, an Evansville, Ind., firm with $600 million in assets.