Windes, a Long Beach, Calif.-based accounting firm, is launching its own wealth management division with the help of Integrated Partners, a Waltham, Mass.-based hybrid RIA.
For two years, Windes looked to start its own wealth management division to cater to its clients’ complex needs. It works with middle-management executives—including privately owned business owners, entrepreneurs and others—and wanted to offer specific services to fit its client’s particular demands, said James Cordova, managing partner at Windes.
Rather than create it from scratch, Windes turned to Integrated for help. For years, Integrated worked as a liaison between accounting firms and RIAs brokering strategic partnerships. This was the first time it helped create an entity from the ground up.
The two firms worked together to create Ovisto Wealth Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of Windes. Ovisto will provide a fully holistic assortment of financial planning and wealth management services including retirement planning, investment management, estate and legacy planning, risk management, and business owner planning, according to the firms.
Integrated provided the personnel along with back office, IT, and compliance support. It also has expertise in working with business owners, high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and others, and will serve as a resource for Ovisto’s advisors should they need help dealing with complex matters they cannot handle on their own, according to Paul Saganey, founder and president of Integrated.
“We’re doing all kinds of activities to support the partners at Windes to make sure Ovisto is really bringing the higher quality plans to the clientele,” he said.
The Ovisto team will consist of three advisors along with a support team. They will operate within Windes’s two main offices and be present in all client meetings when appropriate, according to Cordova. The advisors themselves operate as independent contractors, and Ovisto will operate under Integrated’s ADV, according to the firm.
Integrated will maintain support with Ovisto and has a revenue-sharing agreement in place, and it will share in the advisory fees Ovisto charges its clients, according to a spokesman.
“Our firm’s specialty is working with clients that have a more complex financial life,” Saganey said. “The fact that we could share with Windes the expertise we bring to the table and then offer it to their clients under the brand name of ‘Ovisto,’ that’s really what it is all about.”
With the new division, Cordova is optimistic his firm can satisfy the needs of clients regardless of what the needs might be. Over the years, his clients have asked for help in a variety of areas: from liquidity events to dealing with deaths and estate matters, to portfolio management and asset class allocation. Now, the firm can address all of them.
“All of those things, we’ll house them under one roof,” he said. “We believe in a very holistic type of approach to client service, and for them to be able to have all of their accounting, tax, advice, and wealth management needs under one roof, we feel that’s a huge benefit for them.”
