The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) has sued three of its former wealth managers in Connecticut who handled a total of $2.19 billion in assets. TIAA said the advisors breached their contract when leaving to go to a new firm.

TIAA said that David Wheatley, Timothy O’Shea and William McDonald, three advisors working in the company’s Hamden, Conn., office, broke faith with the company—disparaging it to clients and soliciting business for their new firm while they were still on TIAA payroll as they prepared to decamp to a competitor called Tidewater Wealth Management. Their new firm has offices in New Haven and West Hartford.

Wheatley’s clients had $870 million in assets under management, while O’Shea’s had $915 million and McDonald’s had $660 million, TIAA said in the suit. All three men are Connecticut residents.

“The clients to which each defendant had access and managed generate substantially in excess of $75,000 in annual revenues,” said TIAA in its complaint and appeal for injunctive relief. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. TIAA is suing for breach of contract and duty of loyalty, and also said that the three wealth managers ran afoul of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Before the group resigned en masse on September 3, Wheatley allegedly told a TIAA client that there would be a “mass exodus of Yale advisors” from the firm and that the client would not be able to get help from TIAA’s Hamden office after the team had left.

TIAA’s complaint reads, “On August 20, 2021, again prior to giving notice of his resignation, Wheatley emailed multiple TIAA clients to schedule calls/Zoom meetings to take place between August 25 [to] September 1, ostensibly to ‘speak about your accounts’ and the ‘overall current economic outlook and how that may impact your portfolio.’”

The company said the purpose of these calls was for Wheatley to warn clients about his pending move to a competitor. “During the course of these calls/Zoom meetings, Wheatley advised additional TIAA clients of his upcoming departure and/or made false and disparaging comments about TIAA in the hope it would lead clients to follow him to his new venture.”

The complaint said that Wheatley, O’Shea and McDonald called clients before their departures under the guise of giving them account reviews.  

Tidewater is an affiliate of Goss Advisors and offers securities through the Mid-Atlantic Capital Corporation.

When reached this morning, Wheatley said that he, O’Shea and McDonald could not comment on the case.