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July 29, 2011 at 12:10 PM
Two former LPL Financial executives and ex-Merrill Lynch financial advisors—Scott Collins and Scott Miller—have launched FirstPoint Partners, which they call a boutique consulting ang recruiting firm for relatively high-producing FAs who want to go independent.
The two men said in a Friday interview with AdvisorOne that they would take a more consultative approach to help brokers find the right broker-dealer or custodian, performing what CEO Collins (left) said was a “deep-dive profitability analysis” in addition to making firm introductions and helping the advisor through the transition. Miller, who serves as president of the company, said FirstPoint would focus on those advisors and groups with from $500,000 to $1 million and up in annual production whose clients tend to be high-net-worth individuals but who “want to become independent and have more control and freedom” than they would have in a wirehouse or an Edward Jones environment.
Miller pointed out he and Collins’ experience with LPL gives them knowledge of what’s important to a given broker-dealer in terms of current policies and future plans, while Collins said they also will conduct plenty of “due diligence on the advisors’ business and their goals” to help find the right firm that will support that business and those goals.
Miller (left) said that FirstPoint, based in San Diego, has relationships with seven to 10 of the largest BDs and custodians, specifically Raymond James, First Allied, Commonwealth Financial and Cambridge on the BD side, and with Fidelity on the RIA custody side. FirstPoint is also working out relationships with Schwab Institutional and TD Ameritrade, along with some smaller, boutique BDs. 