NEW YORK, Sept 12 (Reuters) - A team of seven financial advisers that managed $2.2 billion at Morgan Stanley left the Wall Street brokerage to launch their own wealth management group, one of the largest number of people to break away from a big firm in recent months.
The Wichita, Kansas-based group, which was known as the Kirk Bahm Group at Morgan Stanley, decamped to open 6 Meridian on Friday. The move was led by Margaret Dechant, now 6 Meridian's chief executive officer. She is joined by her former Morgan colleagues Tom Kirk, Andrew Mies, Bryan Green, Steve Bahm, Pam Smith, Sarah Hampton and six support staff.
Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Christine Jockle confirmed the group left the firm but declined to comment further.
At Morgan, the seven-broker group was one of the firm's largest discretionary portfolio management teams. They handled investments for high net worth corporate executives and entrepreneurs, clients they will likely try to persuade to follow them to their new business.
The group went independent in part to create and launch their own investment vehicles, in addition to working with third-party investment managers, according to the firm's statement.
(Reporting By Elizabeth Dilts; Editing by Bernard Orr)
