California-based accounting and advisory firm Windes is launching an affiliated wealth management firm in partnership with Integrated Partners, a CPA-focused hybrid RIA with more than $12.7 billion in managed assets and more than $3 billion under advisement. Integrated will provide front- and back-office support, and Ovisto Wealth Management will come under its ADV.
Ovisto is offering advanced financial, retirement and estate planning, along with investment and risk management, as well as advisory, assurance and tax services to Windes’ most complex clients.
With a focus on growth-oriented, small to mid-sized private companies, nonprofit organizations, and high-net-worth individuals, Windes represents one of the larger CPA firms to join Integrated’s CPA Alliance program—which has provided training and resources to firms seeking to better serve wealthier and more complex clients for more than 25 years. But it’s not the first to launch an affiliated practice on the platform.
“We now have a really extensive network throughout the accounting community,” said Integrated CEO Paul Saganey. “For the longest time we built our program working with very good, local community accounting firms of various sizes. But in the last couple of years, because so many of them have been acquired, we began to approach large regionals, and they began to approach us about putting these relationships together.”
Ovisto will be led by advisor Mark Mitamura, who will also remain in his current role as CEO of Integrated affiliate, The Reserve Investments in Newport Beach, Calif.
“Mark is an amazingly successful advisor,” said Saganey. “But he didn't want to grow his practice going forward by adding more of the same clients. He wanted to work his way up that complexity curve and work with clients that own businesses and have more complex financial lives. Therefore, when the opportunity with Windes came up, it made sense to get Mark involved because they’re both such tremendous leaders in their community.”
Mitamura worked with Saganey and Windes Managing Partner James Cordova to design the new offering. He will be responsible for managing the team—two advisors and a relationship manager from his firm, in addition to himself—and facilitating collaboration with Windes’ tax and accounting professionals to support wealthy individuals and households, executives, business professionals and entrepreneurs, and corporate retirement plans.
The launch of Ovisto reinforces Windes’ “commitment to delivering services that are tailored to the unique planning requirements of our clients,” said Cordova.
“It’s really elegant and simple,” said Saganey. “But it’s also akin to what’s going on in the RIA space, isn’t it? Large RIAs like ourselves are bringing in smaller advisors and smaller RIAs because we can bring much more to the table as large organizations, and the same thing is happening in the accounting community. That’s why, for us, working with Windes is a natural progression of where we're all trying to go.”
Established in 1996, Integrated Partners is wholly owned by Saganey. There are currently around 182 accounting firms in the CPA Alliance and more than 75 partner firms on the Integrated platform. The model is predicated on providing the resources and training advisors need to take their practices to the next level. The CPA Alliance offers a captive pool of ultra-wealthy clients that Integrated advisors can tap into, while giving CPA professionals the tools they need to address increasingly complex client needs.
Earlier this year, the firm announced its first full acquisition and created an affiliated insurance business, headed up by Peter Kaplan. A family office offering became available for households with at least $20 million in investable assets last summer, as well as a W-2 option that has yet to be exercised.
Saganey said to expect a “whole lot” of new initiatives debut in the coming year as Integrated continues to add more tax businesses.
“Everybody talks about working with CPAs, but Paul and his team are in a very, very small group of advisors who have actually worked with CPAs successfully,” commented Matt Jarvis, host of the Perfect RIA Podcast, which interviewed Saganey in an episode that aired earlier this week.