(Bloomberg) — Former JPMorgan Chase & Co. private bankers Jerry Garcia and Chris Gatsch have launched their own firm managing $400 million in assets with plans to grow quickly by luring colleagues from large banks to join them.
The firm, Alta Vera Global Capital Advisors, offers wealth-management services, capital raising and hedging solutions, according to Garcia, who is chief executive officer. It has partnered with OneSeven, a registered investment adviser, to leverage its marketing, compliance and operational platform.
“I wanted to build a business that wasn’t just another RIA,” Garcia said in an interview. “I was approached too many times where our ultra-high-net-worth clients had business needs and we’d refer that to the investment bank and 99 times out of 100, the investment bank would turn it down. I got tired of saying no to my clients.”
The move is part of a broader trend of private bankers leaving established Wall Street banks to service wealthy clients in a more personal and independent fashion. The challenge for many new smaller firms is how to manage back office tasks and tap into tech platforms to provide clients with services, which is where the partnership with OneSeven comes in.
In addition, Alta Vera will work with Sextant Capital Solutions for capital raising, including access to private markets, and Millbank Dartmoor Portsmouth for trading in areas like hedged equity strategies and derivatives.
Assets under management should rise quickly given “pipeline discussions” with teams at large Wall Street banks, said Garcia, who is based in Miami.
Garcia was most recently at wealth firm Azura, where he was responsible for building out the business in the Western Hemisphere. He earlier spent 15 years at JPMorgan, including a role as managing director and market manager at the private bank for Central and South America.
Gatsch, who is merging his own Lakehouse Private Wealth Management firm into Alta Vera, is president and chief operating officer. He spent about three years at JPMorgan and nearly a decade with Merrill Lynch before that. He’ll remain in Philadelphia.
‘Grow Internationally’
Alta Vera will also be part of the Merchant Investment Management ecosystem, which owns a 20% stake in OneSeven. Merchant, which has about $250 billion managed across its partnerships, is essentially a bank and can structure and finance deals on Alta Vera’s behalf, Gatsch said in an interview.
Alta Vera, which works with wealthy families, founders and institutions, will have institutional traders behind it and the ability to raise capital with current mandates ranging from $50 million to $2 billion, the executives said.
While nearly all of the 80 or so advisers working with OneSeven are based in the US, Alta Vera is expected to help the firm gain more international experience, said Adam Blumenthal, chief growth officer of the Beachwood, Ohio-based company, which now manages more than $7 billion.
“We definitely want to grow internationally,” Blumenthal said. “There’s a market for that.”
Garcia has focused on Latin America and the US during his career, and he’s talking to teams in Asia and Europe as well.
“It’s truly a global franchise,” Garcia said.
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