Costigan claims he and his partner did not ask any of their clients to follow them. “We just left and hey, Google is an amazing thing and LinkedIn is an amazing thing," he said. "People tend to want to find you and they are going to want to come work with you, and in a lot of case it’s no questions asked.”
He and Slocum feel strongly they did nothing wrong. “We were doing well in our careers at the prior firm," he said. "This was more a move for our career, to be happier. Also, it was a move that was better for our clients.”
“They worked with you long enough and trust you as their advisor; they don’t really care what the firm is," he said. "They care that you have a single business and want to probably make sure you are not working out of your basement. But the idea is they would rather have that relationship with someone they trust and who they have established a relationship with over some number of years, and who is to say who owns that?”
Costigan gives much of the credit to Slocum for the wave of clients who wanted to follow them. He noted that she has been in the industry longer than he and had people follow her to multiple firms before.
All the more reason Costigan does not understand the wrongdoing. “They experienced the benefit of her bringing people in but now want to feud over those people leaving with her that had left the prior firm," he said. "So, it really gets into the real shady area that says, we are fiduciaries but only when it’s not hurting us.”
Costigan said having 25 clients follow them meant the world to he and Slocum. “You are flattered even when one wants to follow you, and you can’t start a business counting on anybody following you because you just never know without being able to solicit or whatever," he said.
But he noted that a more established firm with hundreds of clients probably should expect a few people to leave if they can’t keep their advisors happy. And that, he said, is another underlying issue because it’s easier than ever to start a firm. “So, these founders need to find a way to keep advisors happy because it’s one thing to be a fiduciary to clients, but you might want to be a fiduciary to your employees as well.”
With the aging population of advisory firm owners, Costigan pointed out that more doors will be opened for younger advisors to leave firms and clients will want to follow. “It’s going to be more of a trend,” he said.