Savvy Advisors, the New York City-based RIA of fintech parent company Savvy Wealth, has added six new advisors, including a team that managed $300 million in client assets at Mariner Wealth Advisors.
The additions bring Savvy's total number of advisors to 30 and assets under management to more than $700 million.
Brad Morgan is among the latest advisors to join Savvy. He comes from Mariner, where he specialized in serving current and former Procter & Gamble employees. He worked there as a senior engineer before becoming a consultant a decade ago.
Recently, Morgan was named in a lawsuit along with his former Mariner colleague Nate Kunkel, who joined Savvy last month, and another advisor. The suit accuses them of stealing “confidential client information, client lists and client contact information” and soliciting Mariner's clients, resulting in the firm losing $60 million in assets under management.
This week, Mariner won one temporary restraining order against advisers, prohibiting them from directly or indirectly contacting clients “who have provided services while at Mariner, or with whom they have done business while at Mariner.”
However, the order allowed advisers to make a “direct response to a question a former client asks them, such as “What do I need to do to transfer my business to you?'' or 'Are you willing and able to provide services to me in your new business?'”
The TRO news was reported for the first time BY Financial advisor magazine.
“We are happy that our colleagues, in accordance with the court order, can have contact with their former clients,” a spokesperson for Savvy said in a statement. “We believe that clients have the right to work with the financial advisor of their choice and to be informed when their advisor transfers to a new firm. Mariner Wealth Advisors had requested to cease those communications. We fully intend to continue to abide by the decisions of the court deciding.”
Other advisors joining Savvy:
- Colin Farr and Michaela Sullivan are both based in Denver and come from Schwab, where they held the titles of vice president, financial consulting. Farr spent his last 14 years at Schwab, while Sullivan has spent her entire nine-year career there.
- Alex Austin moved his practice to Savvy after recently moving to Michigan. With 20 years of industry experience, he spent the last three as a financial planner and principal advisor at Insight Wealth Strategies.
- Brian Boswell, an advisor for nearly two decades, comes to Savvy from Oakwell Private Wealth Management. Based in Austin, Texas, he was previously affiliated with LPL Financial and Schwab, focusing on a niche clientele of female physicians and business owners.
- Nick McLaughlin joins Savvy from Signature Resources Capital Management, where he spent almost five years. With nearly 25 years of wealth management experience, he serves a client base of primarily millennials and Gen Xers who are still building their net worth.
Savvy Wealth was founded in July 2021 by a technology entrepreneur Hrithik Malhotra, with the idea of creating a digital-first platform for financial advisors centered around modernizing human financial advice. In 2022, the firm raised $11 million in venture capital financing.
The platform is built around an AI-powered personal advisory panel and CRM called Co-Pilot and includes a direct indexing tool presented last year as well as a new part of investment managementfinancial planning through an “active, real-time” integration with eMoney and a comprehensive database of alternatives compiled by in-house researchers.