Clearwater, Fla.-based Flaharty Asset Management, a wealth management firm with $580 million in client assets, has merged with another local firm, AWA Investment Advisors, in Punta Gorda, Fla., with about $250 million in client assets. The combined firm will operate as Flaharty Asset Management and will employ more than 19 staffers. It will use LPL for its brokerage business.
The move expands Flaharty’s footprint on the west coast of Florida, and brings it closer to being a $1 billion firm.
Flaharty’s Founder and CEO Shon Flaharty touted the fact that the firm was remaining locally owned and operated.
“Unlike some of our competitors in Florida who have sold out to large hedge funds, Wall Street firms or groups outside of the U.S., we are and will remain a homegrown, locally owned-and-operated, wealth management firm with a national platform (LPL) and footprint,” he said in a statement.
