In its latest talent grab, Evercore Wealth Management hires a 'young, up-and-coming player'
The $3.2 billion RIA is mostly made up of seasoned of ex-U.S. Trust stalwarts but its poach of Paulo Coelho from Convergent shows its mindfulness of the coming generation
6 min read
Brooke’s Note: One thing that wirehouses seem to do well — or used to at least — is investing in the future by hiring young people and training them. We don’t see so much of that in the RIA business. See: Next-gen advisor breaks the standard RIA mold to grow with her young clientele — many with $100,000 or less of assets. And that is, no doubt, an issue for an industry that by its own admission needs to draw from all talent pools to make up for a worsening labor crunch. There is, separately, the issue of clients dying and the accounts leaving the firm. Presumably having younger advisors around to relate to clients’ heirs could be part of a retention strategy. Here is a firm with its share of seasoned silver-tip men evolving its culture again with the hire of a young man — not long after bringing aboard women in other recent moves that are linked below.
Evercore Wealth Management LLC continued its streak of poaching top talent with the addition of Paulo Coelho as a vice president and wealth advisor. Though the New York-based RIA has a history of hiring away advisors from top competitors, Coelho is the youngest such addition to the team.
“I thought Paulo was bright, inquisitive, and had the potential to be a young, up-and-coming player,” says Jeff Maurer, Evercore’s CEO.
The New York-based RIA has grown in its first three-and-a-half years, with big additions and backing from its affiliated investment bank, Evercore Partners Inc. Evercore Wealth closed out 2011 with $3.2 billion in assets and more than 50 employees in three offices — in New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis.
Young phenom
Coelho says his youth isn’t a disadvantage, but actually a boon.
“I have a lot of energy,” he says.
And that’s a good thing: Coelho, 30, will take on his new posts at Evercore at the same time as he’s earning his MBA. Coelho, who speaks Portuguese and Spanish, expects to receive his degree from Fordham University in 2014.
That desire to learn and his grasp of the underlying financial principles of wealth management, combined with his experience, stood out to Maurer and separated Coelho from other young business professionals.
“He’s a good student of investing,” says Maurer.
The long haul
Steve Lockshin and Charles Goldman begin to unveil Advizent, a venture that could put thousands of RIAs under a single cooperative
Coelho comes to Evercore from Convergent Wealth Advisors LLC, which manages $10 billion from Los Angeles. There, he was a lead advisor to high-net-worth families and designed and implemented wealth management strategies. Coelho is the second advisor to leave Convergent recently. See: Dynasty Financial wins the account of Lori Van Dusen’s new RIA through Focus Financial.
His former boss, Steve Lockshin, CEO and chairman of Convergent, says he was sorry to see him go. See: Steve Lockshin and Charles Goldman team up in bid to brand thousands of top RIAs as 'Advizent’.
“Coelho was a good, up-and-coming advisor. He was offered a great job. We’re very sad to lose him, but also happy for him.”
Previously, Coelho was a senior investment analyst at Ipreo and a senior analyst at Thomson Reuters, but this move, he hopes, is for the long run.
“This is obviously a long-term move for me and my career,” says Coelho.
Big fish, smaller pond
Coelho currently has no clients, and will focus on business development. That includes bringing in clients and strategic planning. Hopefully, says Coelho, that will evolve into being a wealth advisor and will put him on track to assume an expanded role in the firm.
Story Timeline
“He was looking to make more of a contribution earlier and spend more time trying to develop business,” says Maurer. While there’s no expectation that former clients of Coelho’s will follow him to Evercore, they would be welcomed. The main goal, though, is that bringing on the young hotshot will pay off for the firm in the long run. “We believe Paulo will be a very attractive long-term addition to our firm,” says Maurer.
For Coelho, the move was “a great fit for me personally.”
He started at Evercore March 26, and has been hard at work becoming familiar with his new company.
Brash debut
Evercore made a splash by launching in early 2009 with a wealth of talent spirited away from U.S. Trust. Maurer, the former CEO and chairman of U.S. Trust, brought 17 advisors along with him to his new venture. See: Evercore is looking to its future after lifting out a huge team of U.S. Trust financial advisors.
Jeff Maurer: We expect 25% growth
this year.
Maurer followed up that coup with another big addition this past fall when Evercore added six leaders from Lowry Hill, the Minnesota-based wealth management unit of Wells Fargo, nearly all of whom had more than a decade of experience there before it was merged with the Wells Fargo Family Wealth business. See: Evercore feasts on veterans of an elite Wells Fargo wealth management unit.
The group was expected to bring in several hundred thousand in assets. At the time, in September 2011, Evercore reportedly had $2.9 billion in assets, but by year’s end was overseeing $3.2 billion, says Maurer.
And, the growth isn’t about to stop, he says.
“I expect 25% growth this year and we’re on target for that organically.”
Deeply invested
Maurer started his career at U.S. Trust in 1970 and stayed there for 33 years until, as its CEO and chairman, he was replaced in 2003. Charles Schwab & Co. acquired U.S. Trust in 2000 and sold it to Bank of America Corp. in 2006.
After a stint at Lehman Bros., Maurer decided to launch Evercore in an effort to recreate U.S. Trust’s formula for early success. The RIA utilizes some of the same principles as U.S. Trust, including adopting proprietary products and having portfolio managers serve as account reps.
But a major difference for the RIA is its connections to the investment bank, Evercore Partners, which owns 51% of the wealth management firm and will buy up the remaining 49% over the next eight years. This past year, the RIA also got a boost when 40% of the senior managing directors at Evercore Partners invested assets with the unit.
Evercore also made a move to attract new business with the hiring last spring of Randy Hustvedt, who focuses solely on bringing in new business. See: A big Boston rainmaker joins an RIA start-up in New York with meteoric growth.
As with Coelho, Hustvedt wasn’t necessarily actively looking to leave his previous job, but clearly Maurer can be very convincing.
“Our goal is always to be opportunistic in the marketplace,” says Maurer, who says that in the coming year the firm may acquire wealth management firms and teams.
“We’ll complement organic growth when possible with acquisitions,” he says.
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