“It would have been very easy to start small and over the years build from there.
“They made a decision to bring most, if not all, of the services in-house so everyone shares the same objectives in meeting the goals of the client,” says Seuffert. The Blisks wanted to handle all their clients' financial needs: retirement, estate planning and trusts, divorce planning, separate account management and alternative investments. Lockwood provides Legacy with research, access to money managers and broker/dealer services. A year and a half earlier, Jim Seuffert and Len Reinhart left Salomon Smith Barney to found the independent managed account platform. One thing that made it easier for the Blisks to strike out on their own was Lockwood Advisors in Malvern, Pa. And the entrepreneur in me wanted to build an office of my own.” Indeed, the Blisks' group offers everything from what it calls divorce planning to estate planning. “I wanted the freedom to be independent and grow as big as we wanted and offer total financial planning.
“The bottom line at a wirehouse is that you do what's in the best interest of your client as long as it is on their sheet of paper,” Blisk says. They also took on a number of added responsibilities, including finding the right personnel, insurance, vendors, software, Internet access and office space. When he and Brenda, who celebrate their 19th anniversary in May, left Salomon Smith Barney in February 1997, they took two other employees, most of their clients and about $90 million in assets under management. It buys all the stock in small, growing businesses and a portion of their future cash flow, but the executives stay on.īlisk's pitch is that he knows what consultants need, because he's done it the hard way - alone.
Unlike Legacy and the other companies, NFP prides itself on not being an exit vehicle for retiring consultants. The most successful has been National Financial Partners with more than 100 firms. Highland Capital Holding Corp., GE Private Asset Management (formerly Centurion Financial Advisers), Clark/Bardes Consulting and other firms have tried forming umbrella groups. It will be harder for Legacy to differentiate itself.īut, sophisticated, affordable technology and a more open financial system makes it easier for Blisk and other entrepreneurs to form networks that offer services and products once only found at big brokerage houses. And, now that the wirehouses are focusing on wealth management, they will be formidable competitors. “Before, I said I wanted to have the whole football stadium now I want the whole bloomin' county.” “My vision is to have 150 advisors in an eight-state region from Delaware to South Carolina,” says the 46-year-old lawyer who works two days a month as an Air Force reservist at the Pentagon. (Blisk says he'll pay the industry standard - about 1 percent to 1.25 percent of trailing revenue.) Within five years, Blisk predicts Legacy, with 30 employees (including eight consultants), will generate about $12 million in revenue, up from $3.5 million at the end of 2001, and have $2 billion under management. In fact, he's already in talks to buy a firm near Washington, D.C. “I've always considered us a quasi-independent solution for advisors who don't want to be the CEO, CFO and COO,” he says, “but just want to be consultants.”īlisk also plans to buy existing companies from older advisors who want to retire as well as brokers who want out of the business.
Brenda blisk manual#
Legacy will provide software, money managers, CPA services, mutual funds, hedge funds, aggregated data from most of the nation's investment firms, referrals from Charles Schwab & Co.'s new Advisor Network and the “Legacy Book,” a how-to manual on serving high-net-worth investors. The Blisks want to remake Legacy into an East Coast network of independent advisors to compete against the wirehouses.ĭavid Blisk's strategy is straightforward: Give consultants everything they need to run their own financial planning business. While a big plan doesn't always translate into a big reality, the Blisks have managed to build a successful business with $450 million under management and more than 1,000 wealthy clients. That's why five years ago the couple decided to leave one of the nation's top brokerage firms to start Legacy Advisors in McLean, Va.
David and Brenda Blisk always had big plans.
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