A duo of Connecticut-based financial advisors managing $585 million in assets is joining DayMark Financial Partners, an Ohio-based Dynasty Financial Partners member firm.
Thomas Hofstetter and Daniel Baron co-lead the Southport, Conn. Hofstetter Baron Group, and are joining DayMark from Wells Fargo. The duo works with high-net-worth individuals and families, with Baron saying that joining DayMark and Dynasty will help strengthen the “in-depth” planning their clients need.
“The RIA space has matured to the point we can offer our clients even more than they’ve come to expect,” Baron said.
Hofstetter and Baron both have decades of experience in the industry. According to SEC records, Hofstetter entered the industry in 1993 with Salomon Smith Barney, with multi-year stints at UBS, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo before landing at DayMark. Baron joined Bear Stearns in 1997, with stops at Charles Schwab, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, according to the SEC.
DayMark is based in Cincinnati, with approximately $2.5 billion in managed assets before the acquisition while custodying with Fidelity and Schwab. The firm began in June 2022, when seven Wells Fargo advisors broke away from the wirehouse to form the firm. The advisors worked at Wells’ Cincinnati office, collectively managing about $1.4 billion in assets. But they soon decided to go independent, opting to link up with Dynasty to help with middle- and back-office support, marketing, custody, compliance and tech needs.
Wells Fargo didn’t take the departures kindly; the wirehouse sued Steven Satter, a former in-house counsel for the firm, in September 2022 for allegedly helping the seven advisors to leave and start DayMark. (According to the claim, he also joined them to work there; DayMark’s site lists Satter as a managing partner.)
The advisors set up shop in an office a few miles from their former Wells Fargo location, according to the lawsuit suit. The wirehouse also claimed it would open arbitration proceedings against the advisors (the most recent movement on the case was between the parties battling dual motions to dismiss claims against the other in early 2023).
Dynasty founder and CEO Shirl Penney said the firm was on track to hit $100 billion in assets across its partner firms by July 2024 last year during Dynasty’s annual investor forum. Dynasty’s network currently stands at 55 independent firms (with more then 370 advisors), and $87 billion “on its core technology platform,” according to a Dynasty spokesperson.
In February, the firm hired Tim Oden, a former managing director of business development at Schwab Advisor Services, as its 2024 executive-in-residence; Oden left Schwab last year after more than three decades. Last month, a six-person team of advisors with $550 million in collectively managed assets left Merrill Lynch to create the Birmingham, Ala.-based Fairvoy Private Wealth with Dynasty’s backing.