Tag: Wealth

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Wealth Enhancement Group Acquires Vivid Financial Management

Wealth Enhancement Group is acquiring Vivid Financial Management, a hybrid RIA based in central California with $674 million in client assets under management, the firm announced. The acquisition will push WEG’s AUM above $55 billion.

WEG CEO Jeff Dekko said the group was excited to work with the six-advisor practice “shoulder-to-shoulder” in the coming years, adding Vivid built a strong track record of planning-centered client service that brandished their reputation as a high-quality firm. In an interview with WealthManagement.com, Dekko also said the deal was indicative of WEG’s broader approach to acquisitions, and that the firm was not looking to buy firms everywhere solely for the sake of scale.

“National scale clearly matters, but we also believe local scale matters, because it creates a number of opportunities to create more team activity at a local level, and allows us to deliver business development and resources within that,” he said.

Vivid was founded in 2015, and includes three locations in Orcutt, Lompoc and Arroyo Grande, Calif. The firm was founded by Julie Darrah, Brad Boulton, Todd Woodland and Tim Miller, and its clientele includes executives, families and clients that range from physicians to dentists, educators and farmers. It offers an array of financial planning services, including tax, estate and insurance planning, as well as asset management services and retirement planning support.

With the addition of the three Vivid offices, the Minneapolis, Minn.-based WEG will now have seven outposts in California. According to Dekko, WEG began boosting its California presence in early June and July with acquisitions in the Los Angeles area (though the acquired firms had satellite offices in San Francisco). In considering how to broaden their Golden State reach, Dekko said they’d intended to mirror their approach in areas like the Northeast, where they set up shop in metro centers and branched out into the region like spokes on a wheel. Vivid became central to their California expansion, Dekko said.

“These folks came to us and they were just so good that we were ready to start that ‘spoke’ process,” he said.

WEG’s dealmaking has been prolific this year, with 16 in 2021 alone. In late September, the company announced its largest ever addition, acquiring QCI Asset Management, a 46-year-old independent RIA based in western New York, with $5.2 billion in total client assets (it was also WEG’s first acquisition in the region). The previous largest deal had been finalized earlier that same month, when WEG added the Charlotte, N.C.-based RIA Carroll Financial Associates, which had assets totaling about $4.7 billion. In August, the firm announced it was getting an investment from private equity firm Onex Corp., which became equal capital partners in WEG with TA Associates.

Dekko said WEG would likely announce more West Coast-based acquisitions soon, and also would continue its concentration on the Southeast. Helping direct the firm for the long-term was their belief that the number of transactions occurring among firms with an asset range of $500 million to $3 billion was likely to continue, but he expected at some point in the race for consolidation, aggregators would begin to consolidate themselves.

“I think that same thing is yet to come for us,” he said. “I think you’ll start to see it in 2022, and maybe 2023, you’ll start to see a little bit of that, maybe.”

Financial terms on the deal weren’t disclosed, but the deal will close on Dec. 31, with Darrah, Boulton and Miller all coming onboard as senior vice presidents and financial advisors at WEG.

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Scotia Wealth Management to sponsor Chile Open

SANTIAGO, Chile and TORONTO, Ontario–Scotiabank (TSX: BNS) today announced that the Bank has become the title sponsor of the Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open. This PGA TOUR Latinoamérica event takes place from December 6-12, 2021 in the Santiago suburb of Vitacura. The terms of this new sponsorship agreement span three years and include exclusive (financial industry) naming rights, onsite and broadcast brand exposure and client hosting and experiences.

In addition, Scotiabank has entered into a relationship with the Chilean Golf Federation and Joaquin Niemann, a PGA TOUR winner and member of the 2019 Presidents Cup International Team, Chile’s No. 1-ranked player and the 30th-ranked player in the world. With this sponsorship, Niemann’s bag will prominently feature the Scotia Wealth Management logo during tournament play and will participate in exclusive client experiences during the new Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open.

“Scotiabank is proud to partner with the PGA TOUR to deliver the Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open and to offer our clients in Chile and across the Pacific Alliance with access to this premier PGA TOUR event,” said Ignacio Ruiz-Tagle, Vice President of Scotia Wealth Management in Chile. “This new sponsorship adds to Scotiabank’s long history of supporting football clubs and events across the Pacific Alliance. We look forward to continuing support of the events that matter to our clients and providing them with unique client experiences.”

“We are very proud to have Scotia Wealth Management join us as the title sponsorship of the Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open presented by Volvo,” said Todd Rhinehart, PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Executive Director. “It is truly exciting to have Scotiabank join our growing family of partners as it shows the continued growth of the sport and our tour in the region. We look forward to the success and growth of this partnership as we kick off our second event of the season on one of the most remarkable courses in Latin America.”

“We are also delighted to welcome Chilean PGA player Joaquin Niemann as a Scotiabank Ambassador,” continued Ruiz-Tagle. “Joaquin is known for his quick pace of play and his gallery-pleasing birdies, and he has been delighting crowds on the PGA TOUR for years. We are proud that he is carrying the Scotia Wealth Management brand on his bag during tournament play, and we look forward to supporting him in his continued quest for the top of the leaderboard.”

“I am proud to carry the Scotia Wealth Management brand at the inaugural Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open and I look forward to a winning PGA TOUR season,” said Joaquin Niemann, a six-shot winner of the PGA TOUR’s Military Tribute at The Greenbrier in 2019. “I admire Scotiabank’s long-time connections to communities across the Pacific Alliance and am honoured to be a Scotiabank Ambassador in the Pacific Alliance.”

Ahead of the event, Scotia Wealth Management will host a Monday pro-am, giving 40 clients the opportunity to play on the championship course in advance of the tournament. Niemann will be in attendance and participate.

PGA TOUR Latinoamérica last conducted this tournament in 2019 when John Somers won the event at Club de Golf Mapocho. The tournament has been a part of the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica schedule five times (2013-15 and 2018-19).

Scotia Wealth Management is delivered by a team of local and global experts, who provide comprehensive wealth management brokerage and advice for each stage of clients’ lives—for their families, their businesses and their futures. Scotia Wealth Management combines the client’s vision, with the international wealth management expertise of the team to deliver a team-based, total wealth management approach.

 

About Scotiabank

Scotiabank is a leading bank in the Americas. Guided by its purpose “for every future, it helps its customers, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of approximately 90,000 employees and assets of approximately $1.2 trillion (as of October 31, 2021), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please visit http://www.scotiabank.com and follow on Twitter @ScotiabankViews.

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Billionaires’ Wealth Surged to Record During Pandemic

(Bloomberg) — The share of global wealth held by billionaires surged to a record during the Covid-19 crisis, according to a group founded by French economist Thomas Piketty. 

About 2,750 billionaires control 3.5{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of the world’s wealth, the Paris-based Global Inequality Lab said in a report Tuesday. That’s up from 1{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in 1995, with the fastest gains coming since the pandemic hit, the group said. The poorest half of the planet’s population owns about 2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of its riches.

The study’s findings add to a debate about worsening inequality during a public health crisis that’s hurt developing economies — which are short of vaccines as well as financial resources to cushion the blow — even more than advanced ones. Within the rich world too, financial and real-estate markets have soared since the depths of the slump last year, widening domestic gaps.

Those pandemic trends come after decades of policy that was often geared toward people at the top, on the expectation that it would “trickle down” and everyone else would ultimately benefit too, according to Lucas Chancel, one of the report’s authors.

“There is really this polarization on top of a world that was already very unequal before the pandemic,” Chancel, co-director of the World Inequality Lab, said in an interview. He said billionaires accumulated 3.6 trillion euros ($4.1 trillion) of wealth during a crisis in which the World Bank estimates that some 100 million people have fallen into extreme poverty.

‘Missing Middle Class’

Across most parts of the world, the richest 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of people control roughly 60{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} to 80{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of wealth. But the report highlights some clear regional distinctions. 

Overall, poorer countries have been catching up with richer ones — but within those developing nations, inequality has soared. Same-country disparities now account for more than two-thirds of global inequality, up from roughly half in 2000, according to the Lab.

Latin America and the Middle East are the world’s most unequal regions, with more than 75{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of wealth in the hands of the top 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}, the report says. Russia and sub-Saharan Africa aren’t far behind. 

Other emerging economies like India still suffer from a “missing middle class,” Chancel said. “Colonial inequalities have been replaced by market inequality.” 

Wealth gaps are reflected in bigger carbon footprints, too. In North America, for example, the top 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} emits an average 73 metric tons per capita each year, compared with less than 10 tons for the poorest half. 

Measured by both income and wealth, Europe is the most equitable region, according to the report. The 19{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of total income earned by the poorest half of Europeans is higher than the equivalent share for that group anywhere else. Pandemic policies like income support for workers thrown out of their jobs likely helped prevent that gap from widening further. 

“The Covid crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the very wealthy and the rest of the population,” said Chancel. “Yet in rich countries, government intervention prevented a massive rise in poverty.”

The World Inequality Report 2022 is based on work by more than 100 researchers around the globe, led by economists at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California at Berkeley. The first version of the study came out in 2018.

–With assistance from Giovanni Salzano.

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RBC Wealth Management Moved To A Modern Integrated Platform As Covid-19 Hit

By integrating systems and unifying data across 26 siloed legacy services, RBC Wealth Management — U.S. has reduced new client onboarding from several days to an average of 24 minutes, eliminated 200 to 300 pages of paper documents, and gone from needing 30-plus signatures to signing packets with just one digital click. 

“We were very forms-based,” said Greg Beltzer, head of technology at the wealth management firm. And while hundreds of pages sounds like a lot, much of it was disclosures, and forms for client information, from KYC to beneficiaries to investment preferences and risk tolerance. 

The firm, a subsidiary of what used to be called Royal Bank of Canada and is now RBC, used MuleSoft, a Salesforce subsidiary since 2018, to integrate its systems. RBC Wealth Management — U.S. is headquartered in Minneapolis and has 181 branches, more than 2100 advisors.and $528 billion in total client assets. 

It has managed to replace separate systems, not to mention paper files and Post-it notes, with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud and MuleSoft. 

“If we take MuleSoft and build the integrations, that piece of paper isn’t important any more and it should become an artifact that can be reproduced at any time while we keep it digital. RBC was late in its digital transformation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it put us behind — we got to take advantage of newer technologies.”

Before getting to technology, RBC Wealth Management got down to basics.

“It wasn’t just taking a paper form and making it a PDF. That’s not digital transformation. It really is taking a look at the process of why are we collecting certain pieces of data, what is the approval or the process flow, whether that’s from a branch to director, a branch supervisor or going to compliance.”

Financial services is, of course, heavy with regulation, and that meant the project had to satisfy legal and compliance where tangible paper forms provide a certain level of comfort. Beltzer said the tech team explained it was not cutting corners.

“We said we will make it better, give more transparency and provide reporting they never had in the past. While a paper form can have a tracking number, you might not know where the form itself is.” 

They did road shows to explain how the system would work.

Beltzer’s plan is to replace all the legacy systems with more modern tools, but since he doesn’t have an unlimited budget, he is taking a phased approach. 

MuleSoft is a good fit for digital transformation “because it will not only get me to the new, but I also need something that could talk to my legacy stack until I can upgrade it, replace it, or in some cases leave it there.”

RBC is using a mix of on-prem and cloud — legacy will be on-prem and almost every new solution is cloud based.

The front end is all new, he added. 

“We brought in a bunch of UX designers and had lots of focus groups. If you loved Windows 3.1 you’d have loved our old portal. Now we have a very modern looking front end that can work on multiple form factors — we let our clients really drive that experience.”

The firm does new releases about every two weeks, while with the old system new releases were quarterly.

“They’re obviously smaller releases. But again we’re able to be much more nimble.”

Their timing was good. They started the transformation in August 2019 and finished around Christmas, just before Covid-19 disrupted business.

“ I can definitely say that getting the new system rolled out pre-pandemic was a game changer for us because it meant having everyone on the same platform. We doubled down on Salesforce to have a single 360 view of clients to be able to show to everyone, whether they were calling into a support group, product teams, compliance and especially to advisors and their staff. It was one view of the client so everybody had the same information.”

For a time the firm’s offices were closed, but advisors working from home had access to full client information on one platform. They could pull up real-time balances on assets on their phones. RBC was prepared with VPN. Although some advisors had never used it, within two or three weeks everyone had their secure access figured out.

“That first year of digital transformation has definitely paid off.”

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Insights and Advisors Will Improve Wealth Management Apps

  • When it comes to satisfaction scores, wealth managers trail behind banks and insurers.
  • Wealth managers should invest in digital tools that allow clients to access educational information through the app.
  • Insider Intelligence publishes hundreds of insights, charts, and forecasts on the Fintech industry. Learn more about becoming a client.

The news: US wealth managers’ apps scored higher in key client experience metrics in 2021, including satisfaction—but more work is needed to catch up to banks and insurers, per a JD Power Study.

Wealth management ecosystem



Insider Intelligence


The data trends: US firms’ increased tech investments paid dividends as client satisfaction improved from 2020—yet they still trailed other financial services players’ apps.

  • Wealth managers firms directed their tech spend toward upgrading their apps: 75{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} invested in feature enhancements in 2021, a 31{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} percentage point jump from last year.
  • This paid off: The study indicated more clients were using the app daily (an increase of four percentage points) and satisfaction grew nine points to 858 (on a 1,000-point scale) from 2020.
  • Yet banks and insurers scored higher on the satisfaction scale, with 860 and 877 points, respectively.

Next steps: As wealth managers strive to enhance their mobile apps— a key customer experience battleground for financial services firms—enabling access to investment insights, alongside providing direct access to advisors, will improve satisfaction.

Investing in digital tools that allow clients to access educational information through the app, such as market updates and insights on their portfolios, will improve satisfaction.

  • Clients indicate a preference for independently accessing this information, per Capgemini.
  • Just 47{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} say it is currently easy to research investment options via their wealth app, per JD Power.

Compared to other financial services firms, wealth managers’ core value proposition is the high-touch advisor-client relationship.

  • Investing in tools like instant messaging and video calls will loop the advisor into the app experience and enhance satisfaction.
  • Less than half (44{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) of clients said they communicate with their advisor through the app; this was unchanged from 2020.

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Prominent Financial Advisor Henry Bragg Celebrates Launch Of Independent Wealth Management Firm In Houston, Tx | Texas News

HOUSTON, Nov. 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Experienced wealth advisor Henry Bragg, CPA, CFP®, is pleased to announce the first anniversary of Henry Bragg & Co., an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). Serving as the Principal, Bragg celebrates the successful launch of his firm, which offers a full complement of comprehensive portfolio and wealth management services. Foremost among the firm’s responsibilities as an investment advisor is the obligation to act in the best interests of its clients. 

Building on more than 20 years of experience, including five years at professional services firm Ernst & Young, and as partner with two different investment management firms, Bragg leverages his broad experience in investments, tax, and estate planning. Henry Bragg & Co. is centered around personalized services with a hands-on, individual approach for clients. Bragg understands and communicates the “big picture” while relating it to the client’s personal needs, goals, and family values. Bragg utilizes specialized wealth mapping techniques to visually illustrate a client’s overall financial picture. Bragg believes finding perspective in the complexities of each client’s individual circumstances is key.

“While I established my career at larger firms,” Bragg said, “I saw the opportunity for a more individualized approach. The ability to serve our clients based on their specific needs and financial subtleties makes all the difference in their overall success. As a result, tailored plans are core to our work.”

In keeping with the firm’s vision and to serve clients’ needs, Henry Bragg & Co. offers a variety of services including portfolio management, retirement planning, managing trusts and estates, tax and insurance planning, charitable giving, next-generation investment education, wealth transfer design, and succession planning.

“A good wealth advisor can help clients see the forest, the trees, and where the roads need to be built.” said Bragg. “People may not think of engaging a wealth advisor until something new or significant is happening in their lives. However, having an advisor help you plan for the future is important no matter what stage of life you’re in. We all need help at some point. Life doesn’t slow down; it only moves on. Not being prepared can lead to unexpected challenges and missed opportunities.”

With a passion for helping people and building relationships, Bragg strives to be more than a financial advisor. Clients see him as a trusted partner dedicated to helping them bring their finances in good order.

Henry Bragg & Co. is a member of the Wealth Advisor Alliance and is closely supported by Forum Financial Management, recently named a Top 300 financial advisor by the Financial Times. For more information on Henry Bragg & Co. and its wealth management services, please visit www.henrybraggco.com. 

About Henry Bragg & Co.

Headquartered in Houston, TX, Henry Bragg & Co. is a wealth management firm that specializes in designing tailored investment and planning strategies for its clients. Led by Principal Henry Bragg, CPA, CFP®, the firm prides itself on its detail-oriented approach to the “big picture,” believing perspective is found in the complexities of each client’s unique circumstances. The firm follows an integrated method to portfolio management, financial planning, and risk management, working closely with clients to help them streamline their situation and capitalize on the opportunities of substantial wealth. Passionate about helping people, Henry Bragg strives to be more than a financial advisor. Clients see him as a trusted partner dedicated to helping them bring their finances in good order.

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