Bleakley Financial Group, a hybrid registered investment with backing from Rise Growth Partners, will now go by the name OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners to signify its role as a one-stop shop for clients’ financial needs.
Bleakley CEO Andy Schwartz and Joe Duran, the former United Capital CEO, first forecasted the rebrand after Duran’s Rise Growth took a noncontrolling, minority stake in the Parsippany, N.J., firm last summer.
Schwartz said Bleakley’s name came about without much thought, having morphed over time under a law firm-like roster of founder names until it was pared back to just Bleakley.
“We spent zero time marketing,” he said. “I didn’t have a marketing budget here. We were basically focused on two things: how do we improve the client experience, and how do we improve the advisor experience?”
The firm found success with its model, growing from about $2 billion to $10 billion at the time Rise Growth invested. But now, Schwartz said, it has bigger ambitions as a national RIA and wanted a name to match—not just for clients, but for advisors and advisor recruiting.
OnePoint is “a name that really speaks to us,” Schwartz said. “It sounds institutional, it sounds bigger, it sounds national. … We want to be that one important relationship in the middle of everything for our clients.”
Jennifer Geoghegan, Rise Growth’s chief marketing officer, said the rebrand happened in about six months.
The CMO, who works on Rise Growth’s brand and on its partner RIAs, said they conducted surveys with clients and Bleakley advisors to ask how they perceived the firm.
“There were remarkable consistencies among how all the different groups saw the brand,” Geoghegan said. “The team wanted clients to see them as very relationship-focused, always going the extra mile, solving all of their problems, anticipating problems, engaging with all members of their family—and clients played back to us in the survey that that’s how they perceived their advisor and the firm.”
Bleakley hired a marketing firm named Ludwig+ to work on the rebranding. But it was Geoghegan and Duran who came up with the name OnePoint on a video call.
Once settled, the team worked on redoing all digital and hard copy materials. On Tuesday, OnePoint launched a new website and sent branding and logos to advisors in roughly 17 locations. The rebrand does not include leadership or structural changes.
The move is one of numerous changes at the RIA since Rise Growth’s investment. OnePoint has launched an equity program for its advisors, hired a new chief growth officer, dropped its brokerage affiliation with LPL Financial in a move toward fee-based services, and grown assets by more than $2 billion to about $12 billion.
Schwartz said the firm is targeting about $5 billion of inorganic growth a year and a 10% organic growth rate. He anticipates having 25 locations after the next 36 months.
Rise Growth made its second investment in February of this year with a minority, non-controlling stake in Grimes & Company, a $5.7 billion fee-only registered investment advisor headquartered in Westborough, Mass.
Geoghegan said the minority investor will continue working with partner RIAs to create “lighthouse brands.”
“They should serve as a beacon to engage your clients, attract future clients, and attract and engage advisors and your team,” she said. “Now [Bleakley] has an outside that is attractive and engaging, just as the inside was.”
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