A team of six advisors has left Merrill Lynch to start their own registered investment advisory with support from Dynasty Financial Partners. The advisors, who previously managed $550 million in client assets, have launched Fairvoy Private Wealth in Birmingham, Ala.
The firm is run by Senior Private Wealth Advisor Stephen Davis, Senior Private Wealth Advisor and Chief Operating Officer Neal Carroll, and Senior Private Wealth Advisor and Chief Financial Officer Ashley Davis. They are joined by Director and Senior Private Wealth Advisor H. Alan Word, Vice President and Private Wealth Advisor Claudia Johnston and Vice President and Associate Wealth Advisor Alma Maric.
Fairvoy will operate as a fee-only firm and has chosen Fidelity as its custodian. The RIA also recently joined the Protocol for Broker Recruiting to make the transition from the wirehouse easier.
In an interview with WealthManagement.com, Carroll said the team began to explore its options coming out of COVID, as the advisors got used to working from home. They then spent two years completing due diligence on potential partners to help them become independent.
Dynasty offered the back office support, transition support, tech stack and investment options they were looking for, Carroll said.
Dynasty’s “administrative support, advanced technology, and deep investment capabilities led us to this opportunity to stay on top of a rapidly changing industry while at every turn aligning our interests with those of our clients,” he said in a statement.
In January, another Birmingham, Ala.-based team launched their own RIA, Steadmont Advisors, in partnership with Dynasty. That team of four advisors, which managed $420 million in assets, also left Merrill Lynch.
On track to reach $100 billion in platform assets this year, Dynasty has helped launch dozens of independent firms leaving the wirehouse channel and currently has more than 55 such partners and 370 advisors. It administers more than $87 billion on its core tech platform.
After filing for an IPO last year, Dynasty abandoned its plans amid a bad market for public offerings and raised fresh capital from Charles Schwab and private equity firm Abry Partners. According to CEO Shirl Penney, the company still expects to go public at some point.