In just over a year, Evercore Wealth
Management has parlayed its deep bench of former U.S. Trust
veterans and a timely acquisition into one of the industry’s
fastest growing firms, with $1.5 billion under management. Charles
Davis spoke to CEO Jeff Maurer about the business’s five-year
plan
Evercore Wealth Management has gathered $1.5
billion in assets under management since setting up in November
2008, and has set a target of $5 billion by 2015. In an interview
with Private Banker International, Jeffrey S. Maurer,
Evercore’s chairman an
d CEO, said he was
pleased with progress so far in a difficult economic environment.
Like many boutiques, set up in the wake of the credit crisis, it
has benefited from inflows from larger businesses, but has been
hampered to an extent by risk averse clients.
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“We are happy with what we’ve managed to do in
a rather difficult economy, but I wouldn’t say that we are
surprised or that we didn’t expect this,” Maurer said. “We’ll
certainly be disappointed if we weren’t at $5 billion by our fifth
anniversary. We are going to consider organic and inorganic means
to grow this business.” Evercore, which launched in November 2008,
serves clients with more than $5 million of investable assets. It
has a staff of 35 people, including 15 partners. More than
two-thirds of those partners are former executives from U.S. Trust,
giving Evercore an advantage that few wealth startups have upon
entering the business.
“I was fortunate in being able to recruit a
great team of partners, and I was able to get a partner in Evercore
Partners that allowed us to begin operations with a bigger
footprint from the day we began.”
Maurer said Evercore’s mission is to provide
what he describes as a “traditional, conflict-free asset investment
model” with an emphasis on hands-on client-adviser
relationships.
“My partners are extremely talented,
experienced managers who want to talk to customers,” Maurer said.
“When you get to thousands of advisers and hundreds of clients,
then it’s awfully hard to get the touch across. There is a real
opportunity for boutiques with a high degree of customization and
service.”
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By GlobalDataMaurer, who was CEO of U.S. Trust in 2003 back
when Charles Schwab owned the firm, said he began recruiting
executives from U.S. Trust after Bank of America bought it in
2007.
“A lot of us realized that when Bank of
America acquired U.S. Trust, that old school approach to wealth
management was going to change and the work was going to
change,” said Maurer, who was also CEO of Lehman Brothers
Trust Company from 2003 to 2007.
“Most wealth management companies are built to
create scale, and that becomes the goal. We are interested in
partnering with our clients to produce the best results for them,
first, and we’ll grow the business with that as our primary
goal.”
In May, Evercore bought Bank of America
Special Fiduciary Services Division and established Evercore Trust
to focus on providing investment management, independent fiduciary
and trust services to independent benefit plans and large
corporations. A month later, Evercore opened its first satellite
office in San Francisco and added four partners and a senior
adviser based in the office.
Maurer said Evercore is interested in adding
offices nationally, including locations where Evercore Partners has
offices -Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Boston.
“It’s also hard to be serious about wealth
management in the United States without thinking about Florida as
well,” he said.
Signaling its commitment to investment
banking, in December Evercore Partners launched a U.S. cash
equities business and expanded its strategic capital markets
advisory services.
Evercore plans to hire 35 to 40 people during
the next two years for the equities business. Initially, the
company will cover the financial services and technology, media and
telecom sectors and ultimately will expand to cover about five
sectors. Evercore’s coverage universe will align closely with its
advisory footprint, he said, and will focus on deep industry
knowledge as opposed to stock picking.
Evercore Partners owns 51 percent of Evercore
Wealth Management. The rest is owned by the unit’s partners, Maurer
said.
Evercore Partners, the M&A firm founded 14
years ago by former Blackstone Group executives Roger Altman (a
former deputy Treasury secretary) and Austin Beutner, is undergoing
a dramatic expansion, of which the wealth management unit is but a
part. Last year Evercore ranked seventh among M&A advisers in
US deal value, number of issues and market share, according to
Thomson Reuters.
Maurer said that Evercore Wealth Management
plans to expand both organically and through strategic
acquisitions.
“We’re really pleased with the growth of the
business thus far, and we want to continue to develop more business
by going out and developing clients,” Maurer said. “But we are also
always talking to other wealth management professionals who might
be a good fit for the way we go about wealth management, and we’ll
look to accelerate growth through the right deals.”
Last month, Evercore found just such a deal,
entering into a definitive agreement to purchase Morse, Williams
and Company, Inc. Founded in 1981 as an SEC registered investment
advisor, Morse, Williams & Company manages approximately $190
million for individual clients, families and related
institutions.
“Bob Morse and his team bring over 40 years of
investment experience and a complementary skill set to our current
team,” Maurer said. “He’s a guy who fits what we are doing – he is
an excellent investor, but he also thinks about the client
first.”
The deal with Morse Williams doesn’t move the
needle on assets much, but it does add to Evercore’s investment
expertise, Maurer said. Evercore Wealth Management employs a hybrid
model, offering clients some investments in-house, such as certain
classes of fixed income, and large-cap-value and growth stocks, and
going outside to other managers for others.
“Our whole model is built on unconflicted
independent advice and what this is about is really following what
our clients want,” Maurer said. “It’s served us well in a difficult
economy.”
