Cresset is adding two San Francisco-based teams totaling $5 billion in managed assets from J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. It’s the latest exit from the bank of former First Republic advisors.
The teams include three lead advisors and 12 supporting financial advisors and collectively managed assets for 160 client households.
The team leaders include Dagny Maidman, who joined the industry in 1996, including stints at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse before joining First Republic in 2015, according to his BrokerCheck profile. Chris Chase and Erik Ralston lead the other team moving to Cresset, each with more than two decades of experience in the industry. Like Maidman, they joined First Republic from Credit Suisse in 2015.
According to Cresset, the two teams have been in a partnership for more than 20 years and will be able to offer clients access to Cresset’s Family Office Services platform. Cresset has more than $45 billion in assets under management as of April 1.
Late last week, J.P. Morgan lost two other multi-billion-dollar teams the bank acquired in its 2023 purchase of First Republic following last year’s regional bank crisis. Merrill Lynch recruited a 12-person Florida-based team with $3.5 billion from J.P. Morgan. Citizens Bank acquired a $5 billion AUM San Francisco team; both groups were at First Republic before moving to J.P. Morgan in the acquisition.
After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023, the contagion spread further through the banking industry as First Republic fell, marking the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history and the fourth regional bank to collapse since SVB’s downfall.
In early May 2023, J.P. Morgan opted to buy the beleaguered First Republic from federal regulators, purchasing about $173 billion in its loans, $30 billion of securities and $92 billion in deposits.
The acquisition also brought hundreds of First Republic advisors into J.P. Morgan’s folds. Still, at the time, some worried that the First Republic reps would bristle against the strictures of being at a wirehouse.
A previous WealthManagement.com analysis found nearly seven in 10 First Republic advisors had come from a wirehouse or other large firm, suggesting some had fled that space for the independence afforded at a regional bank like First Republic.
