D.A. Davidson & Co., which has quietly built a formidable financial services outfit far from clamor of Wall Street, on Monday announced two moves that impact its advisory business in two very different markets.
Great Falls, Mont.-based D.A. Davidson has acquired Smith Hayes Companies, a financial services firm with about $4 billion in assets under management and administration at its broker-dealer and registered investment advisor subsidiaries. Headquartered in Lincoln, Neb., Smith Hayes has two other Nebraska offices in Omaha and Columbus.
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
D.A. Davidson has existing offices in Lincoln and Omaha, and the company sees the deal as a way to expand its reach in both cities and in the state.
“We like the Nebraska market, it fits our culture,” says Jim Kerr, president and CEO of D.A. Davidson & Co. “We know how to do business in smaller and medium-sized communities around the country.”
D.A. Davidson specializes in investment advice and planning, with 65 percent of that business focused on individual clients and 35 percent on institutional clients in the equity and fixed-income capital markets.
Its retail client base ranges from the mass affluent to the ultra-high-net-worth market, and roughly 60 percent of that is fee-based.
Kerr says D.A. Davidson and Smith Hayes share a similar client base, and adds that Smith Hayes’ retirement business brings another element to the table.
“They’ve become experts in the retirement area, and their fee-based business, as a percentage of the total business, is higher than ours,” he says. “That expertise will help us as an organization.”
Smith Hayes adds more than 30 advisors to the fold, where they join nearly 400 existing advisors at D.A. Davidson. The deal boosts total assets under management and administration to nearly $40 billion at D.A. Davidson’s individual investor group, which is its preferred term for its private client group.