A father-son duo has left First Foundation Bank’s private wealth division, which has $5.4 billion in assets under management, to found a fee-only registered investment advisory in Newport Beach, Calif.
Ducere Wealth has joined the trend of breakaway firms to launch with a little over $100 million in assets under management. The RIA also has a satellite office in Las Vegas, according to CEO Zane Keller, a second-generation advisor and son of Rick Keller, chairman and chief economist.
Zane Keller said the multi-generational founders have plans to build the firm up to $1 billion in AUM in the next 12 months on an ethos of bias-free advice detached from what he sees as the conflicts at larger RIAs and broker/dealers.
“We want to work with clients to have a more intimate, personalized experience,” Keller said. “There’s so much roll-up in our industry today where you have these huge aggregators that I would argue are kind of going back to the broker/dealer model, where they want to offer their own funds, their own private investment models … they have gotten away from what an RIA is.”
Zane’s father, Rick Keller, founded his first fee-only advisory, Keller Group Investment Management, in 1990. In 2007, he and his team started First Foundation, which provided wealth management, personal banking, and business banking and went public in 2015. Zane joined the firm in 2020 as a business analyst and worked through every department, eventually becoming the director of strategic initiatives.
Now, he will lead a firm that he said they will seek to build through homegrown advisors, rather than recruiting, with a focus on strong compensation packages and the chance to earn equity in the RIA.
“I don’t think a measure of success is how wealthy the CEO or founder gets, but how much wealth they create with others,” he said.
Ducere Wealth will custody with Schwab to start, Keller said, but will seek a flexible tech stack that can be multi-custodial. He noted that the firm has signed on with JIFFY.ai, a Stanford University-created financial services platform provider. It’s also working with Intention.ly, a marketing firm for financial services.
Ducere, in Latin, can be interpreted as to lead or guide, which is what Keller said the firm hopes to bring to clients.
That includes alternative investing. He said clients should take advantage of the private markets, but they may need to start by being educated before they reach a stage of wealth and accreditation where it makes sense.
“We want to start them out earlier in their wealth accumulation phase on why these private investments can work in their portfolio,” he said. “When they get to the point where they can be accredited investors, we can offer more bespoke infrastructure.”
Keller recalled his early days in the business, when he lived at home and commuted to work with his father.
“He has no plans to retire,” he said. “I’m looking forward to working with him for years to come.”
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