Stratos Private Wealth, a division of Stratos Wealth Holdings' RIA corporation Stratos Wealth Partners, has attracted two more Stratos affiliates to its nascent W-2 platform in New York and New Jersey.
North of New York City, Claricity Wealth & Planning now operates as Stratos Private Wealth–Westchester. Heald Financial Advisors in Marlton, NJ, has become Stratos Private Wealth–South Jersey. They are the first additions since the creation of Stratos Private Wealth created last spring after Stratos Wealth bought a majority stake in the San Diego RIA associated with Jeff Brown, renamed it and put him in charge of the new division.
In Westchester, Stratos Private Wealth added a team of three, led by Stratos principal and founding partner Adam Rude. He is joined by his wife and advisor, Helene Rude, and administrative assistant Susan Romano.
Originally in publishing, Adam Rude moved into financial services in 2004 when he joined Gayle Lob Financial Strategies. Eight years later, he became a partner in successor firm Lob Planning Group, and in 2017, he joined Stratos to take majority ownership. They renamed the practice in 2022.
“By sharing resources and ideas, we gain the economies of scale that larger organizations enjoy,” he shared in a statement.
Dan Loughlin joins Stratos as managing director and founding partner in South Jersey. Prior to launching Heald on the Stratos Wealth Partners platform in 2018, Loughlin was director of sales for Havener Capital Partners and previously spent time at WBI Investments, Rumson-Fair Haven Bank & Trust and UBS Wealth Management.
“As the rapid pace of change affects both the registered investment advisor landscape and our own practice, we felt it was important to align with like-minded practices across the country that provide the scale and resources to serve our customers,” he said.
All 2024 additions will be offered the title of founding partner, according to Brown, who said Stratos is looking internally before expanding beyond existing affiliates. Stratos Wealth Partners typically offers outside firms a retail sale and a share of revenue in exchange for platform support and a menu of services, but advisers joining Stratos Private Wealth are expected to eventually divest from the brokerage business and adopt centralized technology, investment processes and branding as W-2 employees.
“We spent the last 12 months doing two things: building the infrastructure and creating the business plan,” Brown said. WealthManagement.com. “Our objective is to bring clients to the firm through established channels, rather than advisers having to do it, and to add additional services such as a wider range of investments and improved services such as tax and wealth, all of which are under development. above.
“Sometime this quarter, we will develop the framework to exit the organization,” he said. “But we wanted to let our internal partners see if they wanted to raise their hands first. The plan is to not have more than one office in key locations as we begin to expand, so we didn't want to push someone in without giving them a chance to see if there's a fit there.”
The new additions bring about $200 million in assets to the Stratos Private Wealth platform, which previously managed about $1.5 billion. Together, they represent just over 14% of the $12 billion under management under Stratos Wealth Partners. Brown noted that conversations are underway with “several” other internal organizations.
In addition to Ohio-based Stratos Wealth Partners, Stratos Wealth Holdings includes two other corporate RIASs and a limited-purpose broker/dealer said to oversee close to $23 billion in collective assets as of March 2023.