Four years ago, the last thing Matt Porter expected was the sudden death of the financial advisor leasing space in his firm’s office.
Porter is the owner of Cornerstone Financial Advisors, a family-owned and operated practice in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Porter and his now-retired partner, father-in-law Darren Josephson, decided to purchase his office tenant’s advisory practice after its owner died of a heart attack in March 2015.
“We felt an obligation to his family to make sure they were taken care of, and since we knew many of his clients, we wanted to make sure they were taken care of, too,” Porter said to Financial Advisor in May.
It was an easy decision for the two partners to make, but not to carry out, Porter said. In fact, he said, it proved to be a challenge.
“Even though we were in the same office, his business model was commission-based, while ours was advisory,” Porter said.
Even more difficult was breaking the news of the advisor’s sudden death to his many clients.
“If you have a relationship with someone for a long period of time and it ends abruptly, it can be awkward,” Porter said.
Building new relationships with someone else’s established clients was not the only concern the two partners had.
According to Porter, while his firm managed approximately $150 million in assets for about 325 to 350 clients at that time, the business he and his father-in-law acquired managed only a tenth of that amount—approximately $10 million to 15 million in assets—yet had as many as 150 clients, increasing Cornerstone’s service accounts by as much as another 50 percent.