Savvy Advisors, the New York City-based RIA of parent fintech company Savvy Wealth, has added six new advisors, including a team that managed $300 million in client assets at Mariner Wealth Advisors.
The additions bring Savvy’s total number of advisors to 30 and assets under management to more than $700 million.
Brad Morgan is among the latest advisors joining Savvy. He comes from Mariner, where he specialized in serving current and former Procter & Gamble employees. He worked there as a senior engineer before becoming an advisor a decade ago.
Recently, Morgan was named in a lawsuit along with fellow former Mariner colleague Nate Kunkel, who joined Savvy last month, and another advisor. The lawsuit accuses them of stealing "confidential customer information, customer lists and customer contact information” and soliciting Mariner clients, resulting in the firm losing $60 million in managed assets.
This week, Mariner won a temporary restraining order against the advisors, prohibiting them from directly or indirectly soliciting clients “whom they provided services while at Mariner, or with whom they otherwise did business while at Mariner.”
However, the order did allow for the advisors to make a “direct response to a question that a former customer poses to them, such as ‘What would I need to do to transfer my business to you?’ or ‘Are you willing and able to provide services to me at your new business?’”
The news of the TRO was first reported by Financial Advisor magazine.
“We are happy that our colleagues may, consistent with the court’s order, have contact with their former clients,” a Savvy spokesperson said in a statement. "We believe that clients have the right to work with the financial advisor of their choice and to be informed when their advisor moves to a new firm. Mariner Wealth Advisors had sought to prohibit those communications. We fully intend to continue to abide by the court’s ruling.”
The other advisors joining Savvy:
- Colin Farr and Michaela Sullivan are both based in Denver and come from Schwab, where they held the titles of vice president, financial consultant. Farr spent his last 14 years at Schwab, while Sullivan has spent her whole nine-year career there.
- Alex Austin moved his practice to Savvy after recently relocating to Michigan. With 20 years of industry experience, he spent the past three-plus as a financial planner and lead advisor at Insight Wealth Strategies.
- Brian Boswell, an advisor for nearly two decades, comes to Savvy from Oakwell Private Wealth Management. Based in Austin, Texas, he was previously affiliated with LPL Financial and Schwab, focusing on a niche clientele of female physicians and business owners.
- Nick McLaughlin joins Savvy from Signature Resources Capital Management, where he spent almost five years. With nearly 25 years of experience in wealth management, he serves a client base mainly of millennials and Gen Xers who are still building their net worths.
Savvy Wealth was founded in July 2021 by tech entrepreneur Ritik Malhotra, with the idea to create a digital-first platform for financial advisors centered around modernizing human financial advice. In 2022, the firm raised $11 million in venture capital funding.
The platform is built around an artificial intelligence-powered custom advisor dashboard and CRM called Co-Pilot and includes a direct indexing tool introduced last year as well as a new investment management piece, financial planning through an “active, real-time” integration with eMoney and a comprehensive database of alternatives compiled by in-house researchers.
