Habif Arogeti Sells Stake in Wealth Management Unit
iPro One buys into Tegra. Deal is second for iPro One. Hill, Barth & King LLC was first.
New York-based iPro One, Inc. (http://www.iproone.com) says it has reached an agreement to acquire a minority ownership interest of Tegra Financial Partners, an affiliate of Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP (HA&W), Georgia’s largest independent accounting firm and one of the country’s top 100 CPA firms.
Tegra Financial Partners is a full service wealth management firm with more than $400 million supervised assets under management (AUM). Terms of the investment were not disclosed.
iPro One’s investment in Tegra Financial Partners follows its recent ownership interest acquisition of HbK Sorce Financial LLC (HbK Sorce), an award-winning investment advisory and wealth management firm with more than $1 billion in AUM. HbK Sorce is an affiliate of Hill, Barth & King LLC (HbK), the 66th largest CPA firm in the U.S.
“Through iPro One’s direct investment in Tegra Financial Partners, we are taking the next deliberate step in the strategic roll-out of our new model for managing and growing a profitable wealth management firm,” said Anthony Wood, CEO of iPro One, Inc. “iPro One’s model seamlessly integrates our sophisticated investment products and services, knowledge, Wall Street relationships and market expertise with the CPA firm and its wholly-owned registered investment advisor. This integration allows the wealth managers to maintain client relationships, the firm to grow revenue and enhance brand awareness, and iPro One to support and build the firm.”
“The wealth management business is evolving very quickly, and CPA firms need to stay ahead of the development curve to remain relevant in a crowded marketplace,” said J. Dan Simms, CPA, Chief Executive Officer of Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP. “Our partnership with iPro One not only keeps us relevant, it gives us a leg up over the competition because their model is unique in the market – no other organization does what they do under one roof. In addition to providing our high net worth clients with exclusive access to sophisticated products and services such as investment banking consulting, iPro One also helps build a tighter bond between the CPA firm and the wealth management firm. It demonstrates to our partners the value that the wealth managers bring to our overall business and helps them see how a vibrant, profitable wealth management business presents succession planning and value options for the CPA firm partners.”
Habif, Arogeti & Wynne was awarded Practical Accountant’s Practice Innovation Award in 2007. Its Tegra principals are recognized nationally ranked investment advisors. Tegra Financial Partners has seen a 48% increase in assets under management since 2005 and a 95% increase in revenues since 2004.
“Over the last several years, Tegra has achieved strong growth in the wealth management area of the CPA firm in part because our clients believe in our finely-tuned process,” said Nick Bhandari, Partner and Managing Director of Tegra Financial Partners. “iPro One will empower HA&W to accelerate our ability to unlock additional potential with our clients through its proprietary CPA360 process. This, coupled with iPro’s access to sophisticated investment products, as well as succession and value options resulting from iPro’s direct investment in our firm, gives us a unique opportunity to leapfrog over our local competitors, attract more high-net worth clients, and organically grow our wealth management firm in a way we have not been able to in the past. iPro One brings Wall Street to Main Street which is something our clients are looking for.”
iPro One says it forms symbiotic relationships with its partner firms to help them gather more assets rather than simply manage them, and grow revenue and enhance brand awareness. All client assets of the CPA firm’s wealth management practice are supported by iPro One’s platform while continuing to be managed by the CPA firm’s wealth advisors. The company’s proprietary technology and business methods generally enable client accounts to be moved onto the iPro One platform without requiring wealth management firms to “re-paper” client accounts.
“Our approach allows the CPA firm to maintain uninterrupted revenue streams and provides its high-net worth clients with a seamless transition process to ensure account retention and client satisfaction,” said William Brock, President of iPro One, Inc. “Our partner firms value our investment banking relationships and expertise to assist them in managing succession planning for clients looking to sell or transfer their companies to family members or business partners.”
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