A team of private wealth management advisors in Morgan Stanley’s Bloomington, Minn., office last week broke away and set up an advisory shop called Bearing Point Capital, also in Bloomington, according to SEC filings.

The partners and co-founders of Bearing Point are Thomas Hawley, CFA, Greg Huberty, CFP, and Patrick Smith, an equity compensation specialist.

The firm last week was granted registration with the SEC under a rule that allows new firms to operate as RIAs as long as they believe they will satisfy all the requirements for SEC registration, including corralling $100 million in assets from clients, within four months. None of the partners returned a call for comment by the time this story was filed.

According to the Morgan Stanley website, which had not yet reflected the departures, the three advisors together had formed the Smith Hawley Huberty Group in December 2015, the first and only Morgan Stanley private wealth management team in Minnesota. Also working on that team were Paul Pearce, CFA and CFP, and Julie Schindler, an associate, both of whom went with the founders to Bearing Point, according to the new firm’s website.

Douglas Dirks, a dually registered financial advisor at the same Morgan Stanley location, also went to the new firm. Dirks has 40 years’ experience with family offices, wealth planning, commercial banking and sophisticated credit structures, the Bearing Point website said.

The firm has seven employees, five of whom perform investment advisory functions and one of whom is also licensed as an insurance rep, according to the firm’s Form ADV.  The firm's website says its mission is to offer comprehensive financial planning services and portfolio management to individuals, family offices, business owners, corporate executives and healthcare professionals.

Bearing Point charges both a percentage of assets under management, ranging from 0.50% to 1.25%, and fixed fees, ranging from $1,000 to $150,000, for its financial planning and consulting services. According to the firm’s brochure, Bearing Point does not have a minimum asset threshold for new clients, but it does imposes a minimum annual investment management fee of $25,000, indicating it is targeting an upscale client base.

The firm chose Raymond James as its unaffiliated broker-dealer custodian.