Fidelis Capital, an advisor-owned RIA firm serving the ultra-wealthy launched last year by veterans of Bank of America and Wells Fargo, has lured a new team of wealth managers away from Bank of America Private Bank, where they managed $4.5 billion in assets. The new five-person team will operate from Fidelis’s new office in Washington, D.C.
The Bank of America recruits include Christopher Tate, who was previously a senior vice president and wealth strategies advisor at BoA, and joins Fidelis as partner and wealth strategist.
"Fidelis Capital operates as an outsourced family office, which will provide tremendous value and support as we strive to help clients navigate financial complexity in their lives," Tate said in a press release. "Instead of the common industry practice of providing clients with access to one primary advisor, we surround families with a team of subject matter experts, who each specialize in a particular field and are in touch with the industry as a whole, to be able to seek out in-depth solutions to complex problems."
Joining him in the new Fidelis D.C. office are partner and portfolio manager Michael J. Sellers; partner and fiduciary specialist Benjamin A. Hilyard; partner and portfolio manager Aaron J. Wall; and client service associate Ashley Connor.
Fidelis launched in August 2022 after a team of six veterans from Bank of America and Wells Fargo decided to join forces. The founding partners included Bank of America’s Neale Ellis, who joined with Wells Fargo’s Paul Ayotte, Matt Michaels, Matthew Ellis and Rick Simonetti. Bank of America’s Libby Castle joined as an investment specialist. The team said it had previously managed nearly $6 billion in assets. The firm first opened with offices in Dallas and Tampa, Fla.
In its launch announcement, Fidelis said it would serve clients “investment and specialty asset management, business transition advisory services, wealth, estate, and tax planning, personal risk management, bill pay and reporting and fiduciary lending services.”