Cost savings and talent pool drive Dynasty to Florida

Citing reduced costs and a burgeoning financial services talent pool, the industry’s largest provider of outsourced platform services is moving its headquarters from New York to St. Petersburg, Florida.

Dynasty Financial Partners will move to downtown St. Petersburg by the end of June but will maintain their midtown office in midtown Manhattan as well as client service locations in Chicago and San Francisco.

Dynasty will save over 60% in real estate expenses and approximately 25% in compensation costs, says Shirl Penney, Dynasty's CEO. St. Petersburg is a “growing financial services market,” with plenty of available talent, Penney adds, noting the presence of Raymond James and back offices of Citibank and J.P. Morgan.

Quality of life and lower taxes were also factors in Dynasty's decision, which has been in the works for a year, according to Penney.

Relocating to Florida “will now allow us to invest more aggressively in people, resources and tools,” he says.

Penney says he expects around 20 of Dynasty’s 70 employees to move to Florida, including himself, and that the firm will hire 20 more people in St. Petersburg by the end of the year. The firm will hire business development, relationship management, technology, operations, client service, investments, human resources, legal and compliance professionals, he says.

Calling the move a “real estate footprint expansion,” Penney stressed that Dynasty is not abandoning New York and in fact has renewed its lease in midtown Manhattan.

With 47 partner firms accounting for approximately $32 billion in AUM on its platform, Dynasty far outstrips its competition, although the market for outsourced services is becoming more crowded.

Helping big breakaway brokers set up a new business and providing services for them remains Dynasty’s core business, but the firm is increasingly working with established RIAs and is also providing capital for partner firms to grow inorganically through M&A.

Last fall Dynasty expanded its portfolio by adding a new Enterprise Group to assist advisory firms with at least $1 billion in AUM.

“The big challenge for Dynasty is extending their brand to RIAs and educating the market,” industry consultant John Furey, principal of Advisor Growth Strategies, said at the time. “Dynasty has been adding existing RIAs all along, but does the market understand this?”