Silver Bridge to buy advisory firm with $400M in assets

Officials for Silver Bridge Advisors LLC said today they to plan to purchase a San Francisco-area investment adviser, adding that their firm has created a separate entity to better market itself to wealthy families and family offices.

Officials for Silver Bridge Advisors LLC said today they to plan to purchase a San Francisco-area investment adviser, adding that their firm has created a separate entity to better market itself to wealthy families and family offices.
The $1.7 billion Boston wealth management firm, formerly Hale & Dorr Capital Management, will buy H&S Financial Advisors, a Redwood, Calif.-based investment adviser with about $400 million in assets under advisement, including $90 million under management. The combined firm will have about $2 billion under advisement.
H&S has one office, and a team of four, led by Martim de Arantes Oliveira, who will now be in charge of West Coast operations. H&S has about 40 clients, many of whom Silver Bridge was already working with, said Stephen Prostano, president and chief operating officer of Silver Bridge.
The deal with H&S “gives [Silver Bridge] a great market, and a talented group of people,” he said, adding that California is a good market, full of both inherited and entrepreneurial wealth from many different industries.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. It is expected to close in August.
The purchase is part of Silver Bridge’s plans to expand nationally, Mr. Prostano noted. At the beginning of this year, he noted, Silver Bridge added an office in Delaware as part of its efforts to increase its footprint.
“We have plans to be national,” Mr. Prostano said. And, in the future, he said, Silver Bridge “would certainly consider any of the major wealth markets: Chicago, Texas, New York and Florida. We see many prospects, but I don’t see it as a land grab.” He aims for Silver Bridge to attain assets under management of about $5 billion in three to five years, he said.
Assets may also be gained by more effectively marketing the firm’s family office services.
The new entity Silver Bridge announced today builds on an existing offering, and is called Silver Bridge Family Office Partners. It will service wealthier clients who want a broad selection of family office services, as opposed to just investment advice and basic services. The Family Office Partners unit will also seek to attract existing family offices looking for another way to handle their needs.
The unit will be led by Allison Taff, who came to Silver Bridge about a year ago from Fidelity Family Office Services.
Silver Bridge currently has about 300 client relationships overall, including 21 multigenerational families who have a net worth of $20 million or more.
“We are signifying to the marketplace is that we have established a boutique that will be dedicated to these large families, and provide them with one or as many services as they need,” Mr. Prostano said.
Asked whether the financial regulatory reform bill creates an additional opportunity, in that some family offices may be required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Prostano said the bigger impetus is cost.
“Families have been finding over the last 10 years that the cost of running a family office is more than they anticipated,” said Mr. Prostano, who was formerly president and chief operating officer of Atlantic Trust, the $17 billion private wealth management division of what is now Invesco Ltd. “Many family offices are considering other alternatives.”