An expanding multi-billion-dollar RIA is hiring former TD Ameritrade talent as it gears up for more deals with indie firms.
Allworth Financial, an $8.6 billion RIA based in Sacramento, brought on four ex-TD employees this month, including Scott Collins, who had led TD’s institutional sales, broker breakaway and business consulting teams, according to Collins.
The new hires also include Scott Gawrych, TD Ameritrade’s former senior sales manager of the advisor transition team; Tyler Boyce, a business development advisor consultant; and Christopher Lambert, an Advisor in Transition consultant at TD Ameritrade, who had a year-long stint at LPL Financial last year.
“I think it was a good opportunity for Allworth to invest in a team that worked well together before. And we were available,” Collins says.
The four new hires, who all joined Allworth in January, follow a slew of departures from TD in the wake of Charles Schwab’s
In October, Schwab
Collins, who had been with the custodian for more than eight years and oversaw a team of about 55 employees, had worked with Allworth in his former role, he says. Allworth custodies with Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity.
TD Ameritrade assisted breakaway brokers in going independent, but it also worked with financial advisors who wanted to join the RIA channel without opening up their own firm, Collins says. In those cases, the custodian would introduce planners to firms custodying with TD that they could join or sell their practice.
“Because of Allworth’s size and reputation in the industry, they were a good partner firm with us, and we were able to work closely on different opportunities,” Collins says.
At Allworth, Collins will lead the company’s mergers and acquisitions team. Allworth is currently looking to acquire and partner with teams that manage approximately $300 million to $500 million in assets in both the pure RIA and independent broker-dealer channels, Collins says.
Allworth purchases firms in both cash and equity, according to Collins. The firm has been growing in recent years, picking up practices in states such as California, Ohio and Arizona.
Lightyear Capital, the New York-based private equity firm that once owned both Cetera Financial Group and Advisor Group, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board recently acquired Allworth from private equity funds managed by Parthenon Capital in 2020. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The custodian had been a key player in the growth of the independent channel.
As for Collins, the new position seems like a natural shift in his career trajectory, he says — noting he has moved from wirehouse, to IBD, to custodian, ultimately to land at an RIA.
He says he is looking forward to being a part of building something at Allworth.
“And continuing to work with financial advisors — which I've done my entire career,” he says.
A Schwab spokesman said the company wouldn't comment on individual personnel moves.
