A 69-year-old, $2 billion Merrill Lynch breakaway looks to his elder to help expand his firm

When John Beirne phoned Phil Sloan over the Christmas holidays to ask him to join the new RIA he was forming, he didn’t get an immediately affirmative response from the man he hadn’t worked with since 1987. See: A $2 billion, 69-year-old Merrill Lynch advisor passes up the gold watch in favor of breaking away.

“I don’t want to work; I’m enjoying not working,” says Sloan, who once headed the investment consulting business at Merrill Lynch.

But Beirne, who has had a relationship with Sloan for 35 years, knew his old colleague’s weak spot.

“I am a golfer but my real passion is markets,” says Sloan, who at 70 is a year older than Beirne. “John said: 'A lot of this stuff, you do anyway. You can do it for the firm.’”

After that interchange, a deal was struck whereby Beirne Wealth Consulting LLC, an RIA launched in January in Milford, Conn., will use Sloan to oversee investments and make presentations to clients. The company already advises about $2 billion of assets but has its sights set much higher.

Phil Sloan said 'no’ before he
agreed to get back in the
game.

Filling a void

A missing piece of the puzzle to reaching that $2 billion mark was finding someone of Sloan’s caliber. He was vice president of managed accounts at PaineWebber Inc. and most recently spent a decade building up Fox Asset Management LLC from $1 billion to about $3 billion of assets under management. He retired in 2008. Beirne and Sloan worked closely together in the 1980s at Merrill Lynch when Sloan was charged with supporting the accounts held by Beirne’s practice.

“I knew him as a person of honor, integrity and intelligence and it’s a hard combination to find anywhere, never mind the investment world,” Beirne says. See: RIAs line up behind Greg Smith as Goldman Sachs reels from exec’s New York Times op-ed grenade.

The intersection of philosophical agreement between the two men is believing in an active management approach that often involves moving into unpopular asset classes and out of popular ones. See: 100 advisors convene with Envestnet’s Crager and Stategas’ Rissmiller to share strategies for managing the market turmoil.

Across the Housatonic

Beirne believes that he can effectively apply this approach to institutional investing on a national level after being geographically restricted from time to time at Merrill Lynch.

“At one time we were trying to go other places in Connecticut and we couldn’t go across the Housatonic River ,” he says. “We’re going to compete everywhere in the United States.”

In doing so, Beirne believes that having a 70-year-old in such an important role will only be an asset.

“This isn’t a business where an age barrier prevents you from performing,” he says. See: Two senior UBS brokers pass on retirement to pursue aggressive breakaway plan.

On the contrary, Beirne believes someone in the investing business is coming into his stride after 25 years. One of the investing newsletters he subscribes to is written by Richard Russell, a World War II veteran who has been covering markets since 1958. Beirne adds that some of the managers he uses are in their upper 70s or early 80s. He also mentioned that Warren Buffett, no spring chicken, knows a thing or two himself. See: Smith Barney broker leaves wirehouse realm after 38 years

Next gen

Beirne is unfazed by the challenge that he and Sloan face in appealing to a younger generation of potential clients.

“We’ll be making presentations to people who are fewer in years than [either of us has] been in the investment business,” he says. See: UBS brokers break away Mississippi style and a bass-fishing ex-Merrill broker comes out of retirement.

Sloan adds: “The needs of institutional and high-net-worth clients are quickly changing as they demand greater objectivity, expertise, and accountability from their wealth consultants. The potential for continued market turbulence has caused investors to reflect upon the advisory services they are receiving.”