Denver RIA Alpha Capital Family Office has brought on a new two-person team with $3 billion in client assets from Citi Private Bank.
Alexandra Romeo Boyles and Will Coughlin will be partners at the family office, offering an expanded set of services to ultrahigh net worth clients.
"We're very excited about Alex and Will joining the team," said chief wealth strategist and founding partner Douglas Campbell in a
Boyles was a senior vice president for ultrahigh net worth clients at Citi Private Bank in Denver and, before that, a senior vice president at J.P. Morgan. Coughlin was senior vice president of investments, also at Denver's Citi Private Bank , and before that worked as a private wealth advisor at Goldman Sachs.
"There has been a tremendous amount of change going on in the Private Banking world," said Jeff Shipley, co-founder partner and consultant with Lumina Consulting in a press release. "Given what is going on I am not at all surprised to see two high-caliber professionals like Will and Alex now join a team that empowers them with the freedom and flexibility to deliver more comprehensive solutions to clients."
Citi has recently faced significant staff turnover as part of its
Coughlin said that in the six months prior to his departure, Citi
"Alex and I have put a lot of thought into this," he told Financial Planning. "One of the biggest disruptions that we were having to covering clients at our old firm was that we were just getting asked to cover more and more clients as the firm was laying off more and more people."
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Boyles said she had felt limited in the solutions she could provide to clients at Citi due to factors like underwriting standards and lending appetite of the company.
"In this new world, I can go out and propose the same set of facts, present the same problem or fact pattern on behalf of a client to a dozen institutions, and then deliver to the client the one or two or three that we think is best, and the decision making ultimately lies with the family," Boyles said about working at Alpha Capital.
Coughlin said that at Citi, they were limited in terms of products and services they could offer clients.
"It was increasingly feeling like in the private bank world, we were always being incentivized to start with a limited basket of solutions, and then, go out and find out which clients roughly need that small bag of solutions," Coughlin said. "We really wanted to move into a new model that would allow us to start with the client's most pressing needs first, and then we can go out and solve those most pressing needs …wherever the best solutions are."
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The duo are excited by the opportunities that working at an independent firm will bring. Coughlin said that he and Boyles felt like it was the right time in their careers to work at a firm with a business model that aligned with their goals for clients.
At Alpha Capital Family Office, Boyles and Coughlin will work with around 40 to 50 families, a smaller and more selective set of clients than at Citi Private Bank. Boyles, who is trained as a tax attorney, said that having a smaller client base will allow her to offer greater expertise and advice that lies beyond strictly financial advice.
And Coughlin said the flat fee structure that Alpha Capital Family Office offers, as opposed to fees used at Citi Private Bank that were a percentage of assets under management, will allow them to be more of a member of clients' core team and offer more holistic advice.
"One of the things that really attracted us to Alpha Capital Family Office is that the firm was built around these solutions that in the private bank world are considered extra credit, but they're at the core of what Alpha Capital does," he said.
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As partners, both Boyles and Coughlin are co-owners of the firm, which they said provides them with greater control over factors like creating teams of specialists with limited turnover that clients feel comfortable with.
"It's really important for an institutional family to know that not only are there matters being quarterbacked by someone they know and trust and understand the advice of, but also that they're creating a path for the next generation to have the same success," Boyles said. "The power of coming in at the ownership level can be understated as it relates to the benefit it would transfer to clients."
Boyles and Coughlin are looking forward to expanding their horizons as fiduciaries working with multigenerational families and helping shape the firm as partners.
"I was in a limited capacity to give advice on subjects like that at a big private bank, but I envision a world in which all of the clients that we're serving are calling us with those kinds of questions when they need advice, even outside of finance, we're the first call that they make," Coughlin said.
