Updated October 6, 2010.
Employees of the wealth management subsidiary of accounting firm Kostin, Ruffkess & Company LLC have formed their own independent firm.
The new firm, Connecticut Wealth Management of Farmington, Conn., is employee-owned and run by the same people who ran KRWealth Management under Kostin, Ruffkess, which is also based in Farmington, according to a press release.
KRWealth Management will continue to operate under Kostin, Ruffkess with a new staff, according to Richard Kretz, managing partner of Kostin, Ruffkess. The firm will continue with four employees, 70 clients and about $100 million under management, he said.
"After much discussion, we concluded that rather than create what could be a contentious situation, we would give the former employees the opportunity to transition some of KRWealth's clients to their new entity," Kretz said in a statement released Wednesday, October 6. "We've done everything we can to make the transition as seamless as possible for these clients."
Connecticut Wealth has a staff of about seven, including three CFPs, and manages about $190 million in assets, firm spokesman Gregg Dinino said. An affiliate of LPL Financial, Connecticut Wealth is a fee-based firm that specializes in serving physicians, business owners and other high-net-worth clients, he said. Connecticut Wealth has about 200 clients, he added. The average client has about $1 million in managed assets.
"They decided to go out on their own so they could focus solely on wealth management," Dinino said.
Connecticut Wealth will continue to be headed by Kevin Leahy, who will serve as president and CEO after heading KRMWealth for ten years.
"We enjoyed our time as part of their organization, but recognized that an independent ownership structure was necessary," Leahy said in a prepared statement. "This decision will free up resources, primarily time, to allow us to focus on providing an even higher level of personalized service that our clients deserve."