Throughout most of its history, Coldstream focused on organic growth, only rarely engaging in M&A activity, but that is changing moving forward. Not only has the firm completed a pair of key transactions in recent months, but Fitzwilson and his team are on the lookout for other independently minded, culturally compatible advisors.

An Attractive Option
“Independence was a big part of our decision,” says Josh Harris, relationship manager and managing director for corporate development. Harris currently oversees the development of Coldstream’s client experience and growth. Before he was at Coldstream, he co-founded Mercer Island, Wash.-based Paracle Advisors in 2004 to serve mass affluent and moderately wealthy clients with financial planning. Paracle merged with Coldstream earlier this year.

“As Paracle, we had been offering ownership to our employee group, and that wasn’t based on bringing in a book or any traditional things,” says Harris. “It didn’t matter what position someone sat in. At that time, we had nine shareholders out of 22 people in our firm.”

After 17 years, Paracle had amassed about $1.4 billion in client assets, snowballing through organic growth with very little marketing. But it had reached a size where its leadership was wondering what “phase two” looked like for their firm. Harris and his partners had conversations with 26 different potential partners until finally settling on Coldstream.

Now part of a new firm, Harris’s Paracle team is intact and relatively autonomous, free to continue to serve its more moderately affluent clients while other advisors and teams in the firm focus on more exclusive levels of wealth. In fact, Coldstream itself has a flexible policy on client asset minimums—many of its clients are the first generation of wealth in their families and come seeking advice as the grow. Many come with with little or no assets. However, they're often seeking advice on how to deal with lucrative employee benefits from Seattle-area companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

So Paracle’s tradition of appealing to more mass-affluent and moderately wealthy clients fits into Coldstream’s philosophy. But it was Coldstream’s corporate culture that sealed the deal for Paracle.

“I’m in my mid-to-late 40s, so I have kind of a long runway with a lot of work left to do and a lot of fun to be had,” says Harris. “Kevin was looking for collaboration, which has been an incredible tradition at Coldstream. They are fiduciaries who focus 100% on doing right by their clients. We all wanted to enjoy the journey along the way and have some fun. Those things attracted us and got us deeper and deeper.”

At the same time, Paracle gains access to the expertise of other Coldstream advisors, the back-office operations built by the larger firm, and support to grow and scale, says Anne Marie Stonich, Coldstream’s chief wealth strategist and marketing lead. Stonich co-founded Paracle Advisors in 2004 with Harris. At Coldstream, Stonich is responsible for integrating the firm’s financial planning with its investment strategies.

Stonich saw in Coldstream the infrastructure and mindset that Paracle needed to continue to grow, which allows her to focus more on strategy.

“With Coldstream,” says Stonich, “we’re focused on a much longer term strategic growth initiative rather than increasing profitability as quickly as possible.” That focus on shorter-term profitability is a bigger danger at firms backed by private equity, she says. “It enables us to make real changes in our team, in our company, and in the environment in which we operate.”

Many Teams, One Firm
Much of this is made possible by Coldstream’s hub-and-spoke-like team structure. While Chief Operating Officer Phil Platt oversees a centralized back-office operation that serves all of Coldstream’s front-office client-facing teams, those client service teams are free to create the client experience of their choice.

“Each team can focus on the client they want to focus on and the experience they want to provide, but they all can use the back-end system we provide,” Platt says. “We give them the flexibility to do things in different ways so they can decide which way is right for their client. For us it’s about delivering in the back office a team that allows client teams to operate efficiently, with flexibility and variety when we can.”

Platt has had a circuitous route to Coldstream, having held business management and marketing roles at Microsoft and Sprint before serving as an executive in the wealth management industry. He served for a time as managing director of operations for the Threshold Group, the impact-minded Seattle-based family office founded by the Russell family (the namesake of Russell Investments).