Integrated Partners, a Waltham, Mass.–based hybrid registered investment advisor, has rolled out a package of services for advisors that work with ultra-high-net-worth families and individuals with $20 million or more in investable assets. The RIA has poached Stephen Kolano, the former chief investment officer for BNY Mellon Investor Solutions, as managing director of investments for the family office offering.
Integrated has not launched its own family office entity, but rather, the services will be available to its network advisors as part of its platform and capabilities, Kolano said. In the last 12 to 18 months, the firm has seen an increase in more complex cases where family office-type services are needed. Much of that momentum, he added, has come out of the firm’s business owner platform, which allows advisors to engage with the business owner clients of the CPAs in Integrated’s network. The firm has built the planning infrastructure for the business owner, preparing them to get ready to sell.
“Advisors who are on the Integrated platform are seeing more opportunities of ultra-high-net-worth and family office and family wealth level,” Kolano said. “Usually you start to see the need for these type of services north of $20 million. It usually coincides with when the level of wealth spans more than one lifetime.”
These types of clients require planning for passing wealth to the next generation or multiple generations, not just saving for retirement over a single lifetime.
“What Integrated is seeing is more opportunities of advisors coming to the table with individuals or families that are in that $20 to $100 million range that have unique needs different from a more mass affluent or affluent client, and it requires a unique approach, where it’s more of a team-based approach, the ability to bring different subject matter experts that can address all those unique needs into a single point of reference,” Kolano said.
Each client will get access to a collection of four to five subject-matter experts, inside and outside of Integrated. That includes the advisor, who acts as the “client advocate,” Kolano said. It also includes another relationship manager, an Integrated employee who provides 24-hour support for the client; an estate planner and business owner expert; a CPA firm to do tax planning and reporting; an outside firm to help with family dynamics; and someone to manage the investment program.
“Oftentimes the portfolio management and investment management needs of individuals or families of that level of wealth—$20 million and onward—are complex in the sense of it could be oftentimes a business owner, where the business finances are closely intertwined with the personal finances or the family finances,” Kolano said.
These clients also have assets held in multiple locations and prefer to have reporting on their assets in aggregate. Integrated will provide that.
“Oftentimes, with this level of wealth, the assets and liability—they want to look at those together as almost one balance sheet,” Kolano said.
Integrated will also connect these families with subject-matter experts who can educate them on best practices around personal security, aircraft leasing, concierge health care services and cybersecurity advice.
