Stratos Private Wealth, a division of Stratos Wealth Holdings’ corporate RIA, Stratos Wealth Partners, has pulled two other Stratos affiliates onto its nascent W-2 platform in New York and New Jersey.
North of New York City, Claricity Wealth & Planning is now operating as Stratos Private Wealth–Westchester. Heald Financial Advisors in Marlton, N.J., has become Stratos Private Wealth–South Jersey. They are the first additions since Stratos Private Wealth was created last spring after Stratos Wealth bought a majority stake in Jeff Brown’s affiliated San Diego RIA, rebranded it and put him in charge of leading the new division.
In Westchester, Stratos Private Wealth added a team of three, led by Stratos principal and founding partner Adam Rude. He is joined by his wife and advisor, Helene Rude, and Administrative Assistant Susan Romano.
Originally in publishing, Adam Rude transitioned to financial services in 2004 when he joined Gayle Lob Financial Strategies. Eight years later, he became a partner in the successor firm Lob Planning Group, and in 2017, he partnered with Stratos to assume majority ownership. They rebranded the practice in 2022.
“By sharing resources and ideas, we gain the economies of scale enjoyed by larger organizations,” he shared in a statement.
Dan Loughlin joins Stratos as a managing director and founding partner in South Jersey. Before launching Heald on the Stratos Wealth Partners platform in 2018, Loughlin was a sales director for Havener Capital Partners and previously spent time at WBI Investments, Rumson-Fair Haven Bank & Trust and UBS Wealth Management.
“As the rapid pace of change impacts both the registered investment advisor landscape and our practice, we felt it was important to align with like-minded practices across the country that provide the scale and resources to serve our clients,” he said.
All 2024 additions will be offered the title of founding partner, according to Brown, who said Stratos is looking internally before expanding outreach beyond existing affiliates. Stratos Wealth Partners typically offers external firms a minority sale and portion of revenues in return for platform support and a menu of services, but advisors joining Stratos Private Wealth are expected to ultimately drop brokerage business and adopt centralized technology, investment processes and branding as W-2 employees.
“We spent the last 12 months doing two things: Building the infrastructure and creating the business plan,” Brown told WealthManagement.com. “Our objective is to bring clients to the firm through sustainable channels, rather than the advisors having to do that, and to add additional services such as a broader array of investments and enhancing services like tax and estate, all of which is under development.
“Sometime this quarter, we are going to develop the framework for going outside of the organization,” he said. “But we wanted to let our internal partners see if they wanted to raise their hands first. The plan is not to have more than one office in key locations as we begin to expand, so we didn’t want to push someone internally out without giving them the opportunity to see if there’s a fit there.”
The new additions bring about $200 million in assets to the Stratos Private Wealth platform, which previously managed around $1.5 billion. Together, they represent a little more than 14% of the $12 billion managed under Stratos Wealth Partners. Brown noted that conversations are underway with “several” other internal organizations.
In addition to Ohio-based Stratos Wealth Partners, Stratos Wealth Holdings includes two other corporate RIAS and a limited-purpose broker/dealer reportedly overseeing close to $23 billion in collective assets in March 2023.