Dynasty Stands By Its Differences

Celebrating its two-year anniversary with an announcement of its 11-figure status, New York-based Dynasty Financial Partners aims to separate itself from the myriad of firms offering services to registered investment advisors.

“Our ability to allow our advisors to become institutional ‘clients of the Street' in order to execute strategies on behalf of their clients has proven to be an important differentiator for our teams," president and CEO Shirl Penney said.

When asked to elaborate, Penney responded that many of Dynasty's resource partners see Dynasty and its network as one institutional client. “Thus,” he added, “the advisors in the network get the benefit of the size and the scale of the network when going out to the Street to find the best product, pricing, and execution for clients. In addition, Dynasty's service team consists of product specialists who help navigate and negotiate options with our advisor clients.”

The resource partners to which Penney refers are the firms Dynasty works with, such as custodians and lending partners. “They don’t see the underlying advisors as standalone RIAs,” he said in an interview. “Instead, they look at the Dynasty network, which consists of 13 firms with 40 advisors, managing a total of $15 billion in assets. The underlying advisors are part of a collective client.”

Dynasty is differentiated from wirehouses in several respects, Penney said. The advisors in the network tend to be in a wealth management mode, as opposed to focusing on transactions. Assets are safely custodied at other firms, separate from Dynasty. What’s more, the firms in the network have access to a broad array of products and services. Wirehouse advisors, by contrast, work at a firm that can act as product manufacturer and asset custodian. “With our structure,” said Penney, “we are able to offer unbiased holistic advice.”

Penney differentiated Dynasty from the many companies courting RIAs these days. “We offer our advisors access to everything they need for their business,” he said, “from insurance to trusts to capital markets to trading. The directors on our Board provide connections that are difficult to replicate. The firms we deal with, such as our resource partners, look at us and see growth that’s outpacing anyone else. In the next year or two, our size will be a multiple of where we are now.”

Dynasty is not an aggregator of RIAs, Penney said. “We are a broad service provider,” he said. “If the independent advisory space can be compared to a gold rush, we are the Levi Strauss, serving high-end clients.”

Firms in the Dynasty network all have their own ADVs, Penney said. “The advisors generally own 100% of the equity in their firms,” he said, “although some have private equity investors. The advisors run their own businesses.” Dynasty, while not an owner, stands ready to supply the sturdy jeans–and perhaps the picks and shovels–those independent investment advisors seek in order to pluck nuggets from the swelling stream of RIA revenues.

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