Pitcairn, a Conshohocken, Pa.-headquartered household workplace and belief firm, has acquired Brightside Companions, a Baltimore-based registered funding advisor with $2.5 billion in belongings beneath advisement. This represents Pitcairn’s first acquisition in its 102-year historical past, bringing its complete AUA to $9 billion.
On the similar time, the agency has launched a brand new registered funding advisor entity, Pitcairn Wealth Advisors, with plans to maneuver the overwhelming majority of its belongings to it over the course of this yr. The RIA will use Constancy as its major custodian.
Brightside Companions will shutter its RIA and are available beneath Pitcairn’s ADV. Brightside’s 5 staff members, together with companions Tempo Kessenich, Ryan Pollard and Justin Bakewell, have joined as W-2 workers.
Pitcairn President and CEO Andrew Busser stated his agency has little interest in taking non-public fairness capital or going public. The agency additionally doesn’t wish to turn out to be an RIA roll-up or aggregator. Nonetheless, the Brightside acquisition introduced a possibility to develop Pitcairn’s various investments platform, with Brightside having relationships with greater than 100 asset managers and analysis companions throughout enterprise capital, non-public fairness, non-public credit score and actual property asset lessons.
“With Brightside, we noticed an important alternative so as to add to our alternate options platform to make it mainly the gold customary in household workplace alternate options investing,” Busser stated. “Now now we have all these relationships with fund managers and analysis companions and all types of funds. Whereas we had good analysis and entry earlier than, now it’s world-class.”
Pitcairn was based in 1923 as a single-family workplace by the sons of industrialist John Pitcairn Jr. In 1987, it launched a belief firm that started inviting different households to share in its investments. The agency now serves 140 households throughout the nation by means of that belief firm. The Pitcairn household accounts for about 5% of its belongings right this moment.
Busser stated the agency launched the RIA due to how a lot it has grown.
“Being a state-chartered belief firm is simply too small a regulatory construction for a nationwide agency, and we’ve turn out to be a nationwide agency as a result of shoppers from all around the nation have sought us out,” he stated. “It’s necessary for us and for shoppers that we be SEC-regulated, be nationally regulated and have the very best regulatory construction to be a profitable nationwide agency.”
Pitcairn will hold the Pennsylvania-chartered belief firm, permitting the agency to proceed serving as trustee on a number of hundred trusts.
The corporate might make different acquisitions within the RIA area, however it will likely be selective, Busser stated.
“We’ll take a look at acquisition alternatives that make nice sense for shoppers,” he stated. “However very affirmatively, we aren’t going to have interaction within the form of roll-up methods which are very fashionable lately. For us, a very powerful factor is shopper expertise and tradition, and we don’t wish to develop so quick that we might sacrifice both of these issues.”
“We now have no exit plan of any variety as a agency, so we might not wish to purchase anyone on the lookout for that payday,” he stated.
