Deals & People November 29, 2012

Snowden Adds Two Adviser Teams

The DiCiaccio and LaMothe-Gonzalez Groups have joined Snowden Capital Advisors LLC.
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The DiCiaccio team includes John DiCiaccio, managing director, and Leah Thomson Snell, vice president. Jon LaMothe and Luis Gonzalez are managing directors of the LaMothe-Gonzalez team. All members have become Snowden partners.

The DiCiaccio and LaMothe-Gonzalez teams join from Merrill Lynch and have opened a West Coast office in Pasadena, California. The DiCiaccio Group has been ranked in Barron’s “Top 100 Financial Advisors.” Snowden’s new adviser teams manage in excess of $500 million of client assets and substantially strengthen the firm’s advisory capabilities.

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“We are excited to have such high quality, ‘culture carrying’ adviser teams place their trust in our firm,” said Rob Mooney, a co-founder of Snowden as well as managing partner and chief executive.

DiCiaccio pointed to Snowden’s culture as a selling point to their team and their clients. “We also appreciate the extensive industry leadership experience of Snowden’s management team,” he said.

LaMothe cited Snowden’s range of advisory services and support, and said the platform was a suitable fit for their clients. “We believe Snowden’s independent, dually registered, open architecture model is emerging as a strong growth model in the industry,” Gonzalez said.

Snowden Capital Advisors is a registered investment adviser and broker/dealer in New York that provides advisory services to individuals and institutional clients.

In Practice November 29, 2012

How Do Plan Sponsors Choose an Adviser?

Franklin Templeton investigated defined contribution plan sponsors’ process for selecting plan advisers.
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According to “Insights on Closing the Sale,” more than half of plan sponsors reviewed at least five advisers in their search. While 81% of plan sponsors actively sought advisers through recommendations or referrals from colleagues, peer organizations or retirement plan service providers, less than one-quarter of plan sponsors responded to an adviser solicitation.

When asked what criteria they used to initially screen potential advisers, plan sponsors most often cited personal fit/sales process (60%), followed by pricing (53%) and experience/expertise (44%), with previous relationship (5%) least frequently cited. When selecting an adviser from among those considered as finalists, plan sponsors continued to most frequently cite personal fit/sales process (55%) as an attribute leading to their decision.

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Other attributes—most notably pricing—were greater factors in situations when the bid was lost than when the bid was won by the adviser.

The study is based on conversations between Chatham Partners and plan sponsors whose plans collectively represent more than $6 billion in assets. The study paper is available at the resource center in Franklin Templeton’s online Retirement Center. The paper addresses lead generation, prospect management and finals activity.

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