Snowden Lane Partners is extending its reach in the Western New York region with the addition of a $500 million Buffalo-based advisory team joining from Merrill Lynch. The new partnership will vault Snowden Lane over $6 billion in assets under management.
Magnolia Wealth Advisors is a five-person team, including Bill Markel as senior partner and managing director, Michael Schmatz and Michael Kreuzer as partners and managing directors, VeLisa Williams as senior registered client relationship manager and Shrifa Mang as client relationship manager.
According to Markel, the independent market looked increasingly attractive in the past several years, and Magnolia began to consider leaving the wirehouse world. In an email to WealthManagement.com, Markel said Snowden Lane’s boutique business model, leadership team and the absence of bureaucracy drove their decision.
“We like the partnership culture and the fact that every advisor owns equity, which aligns advisors, investors and management,” he wrote.
Markel said Snowden Lane CEO Rob Mooney’s previous experience as general counsel and chief business risk officer of Merrill Lynch’s Global Wealth Management group helped inspire the deal, as Magnolia’s team felt they shared similar values (Snowden Lane Chairman Lyle LaMothe and President and COO Greg Franks also had tenures at Merrill).
Snowden Lane Partners was founded in 2011 by four long-time Merrill Lynch wealth management executives as an advisor-owned hybrid broker/dealer RIA. Since then, it has opened offices throughout the country after its initial start with locations on the east and west coasts (the company is headquartered in New York City). Buffalo is the firm’s 12th office, joining cities like Pittsburgh and San Antonio. Before Magnolia, its most recent office opening was in Chicago in Nov. 2019.
In an email to WealthManagement.com, Mooney said they intended to recruit additional advisory teams in the Buffalo area, while Markel hoped to add to Magnolia’s advisor count, as well.
“Buffalo has long been a very attractive wealth market,” Mooney wrote. “We see it as an important location in our developing national footprint in attractive wealth markets across the country.”
Magnolia made this move in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ramifications of that crisis continue to impact how Snowden Lane brings teams onboard. COO Greg Franks wrote in an email that the firm benefits from being entirely e-signature based, so clients who had their accounts with Magnolia when it was affiliated with Merrill Lynch could virtually move them to Snowden Lane if they desired.
“We were able to pivot our business to a remote setting pretty much overnight,” he wrote. “And interestingly, the pandemic prevents advisors who inherit client accounts from visiting clients, which is very helpful when teams decide to leave.”
Most of Snowden Lane Partners’ offices have remained accessible during the pandemic, Franks said. Most clients have been at home for prolonged periods of time over the past nine months making transitions into Snowden generally faster and more successful. He expected that even after the pandemic, Snowden Lane will employ a combination of remote and office working, with more emphasis on teleconferences.
Markel said Magnolia had actually increased contact with many clients because of the ease of teleconferencing, and had been getting referrals even in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.
“The pandemic will be behind us soon and we’ll continue to grow the business using technology and Snowden Lane’s platform,” he wrote.