Elevation Point, an investment firm launched last year by Jim Dickson, has taken a minority stake in newly established registered investment advisor Family Office Partners in Lafayette, La. The team of advisors, with about $2.5 billion in client assets, recently broke away from UBS.
This represents Elevation Point’s first deal since selling a minority stake to Emigrant Partners in May and its first in the breakaway space. While Emigrant Partners and Elevation Point have similar business models, the investment gave Emigrant exposure to the breakaway advisor market.
Family Office Partners consists of a 12-person team, led by Benjamin T. Domingue, Travis D. Frayard, and Shawna S. Prejean. They’ll use Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions and BNY Pershing for custody.
The team specializes in serving families with significant private company interests. They provide investment management and advanced family office services, including private company transactions and exit planning. They also provide ESOP strategies, liquidity planning, tax strategy, estate structuring, philanthropic planning and family governance.
Domingue said he and his team decided to go independent to better serve the specific needs of their clientele, which includes entrepreneurs and business owners. They also wanted to be able to offer options beyond the captive environment they were in.
“We regularly get clients coming to us asking to help with managing a transaction, finding an institutional debt source that’ll help them with their company. The reality is, when you think about our industry, no one institution is the right solution for every entrepreneur,” he said. “For us, we only had one option, and that’s to be in a position to go to any institution, find the solution where it lies and sit on the same side of the table as the client to go find it.”
Rather than join an existing RIA, the team decided to build its own model. “We started thinking, ‘If we really want to deliver for clients, we have to build the destination that works for who we focus on.’”
“Every conversation we had with everyone we talked to was about us moving from point A to point B. And it was about how point B operates and how great point B is,” he said.
Conversations with Elevation Point were different.
“It was always about what our goals are, what our plans are, what capabilities we were looking for and how they can help us plug into the right communities to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said.
Domingue also had a longstanding relationship with Brad Smithy, founding partner and head of wealth management at Elevation Point, when Smithy worked at UBS.
This follows news earlier this month that Elevation Point hired Lara Galloway, formerly chief marketing officer at Goldstone Financial Group, as head of growth. Melinda Brodbeck, formerly a managing director at communications agency JConnelly, also joined as head of corporate communications, focusing on Elevation Point’s presence in the industry as a leader in minority stake partnerships, along with assisting its partner firms.
Earlier this month, the firm added Eric Clarke, founding CEO of Orion Advisor Solutions, to its board of directors. The firm also added Mike Mikan, president and CEO of NeueHealth and former CFO of UnitedHealth Group, to its board. Clarke will bring his expertise in wealthtech and data strategy to the role, as Elevation Point continues to build out its technology.
Elevation Point has closed six deals so far. These include stakes in Fortage Capital Advisors, a new RIA in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Triton Wealth, an RIA in Aitkin, Minn.; and Stonebrook Private, a firm in Northville, Mich.
#Elevation #Point #Stakes #2.5B #Breakaway #Team #Left #UBS