Focus Expands

Focus Financial Partners, the buyer of advisory firms led by CEO Rudy Adolf, has entered the business of providing consulting help to brokers looking to leave wirehouses and form RIA firms. The first team to take advantage of the “Connections” service is LLBH Group Private Wealth Management in Westport, Connecticut, whose four partners left Merrill Lynch to found their $1 billion in AUM RIA firm in October 2008. Among the “concierge” services offered by Focus to such teams is providing an interim COO to get the firms up and running; once established as independent firms, they can use other resources at Focus, including marketing and HR support, and access to capital.

Jim Pratt-Heaney, who holds the CIMA designation and is an LLBH co-founder and partner in charge of investing, said that when he and his partners decided to go independent, “we chose Focus because, number one, we’re aligned in how we treat clients.”