Mindy Diamond Quoted
By Brooke Southall
The Maher Group – the former Merrill Lynch team – had eight individuals, some with legal or accounting degrees or CFA credentials. Better yet, it had established a niche over the past decade of serving business owners with $5 million to $250 million of revenue — many of whom have or will soon be seeking specialized knowledge and connections to liquidate their holdings.
Mindy Diamond, chief executive of Diamond Consultants, who assisted in consulting the breakaway, says that Maher’s team bumped up against the same concern as other Merrill brokers but that it just manifested itself differently.
“Everyone talks about wanting more freedom but that gets translated into different things for different advisors,” she adds. Diamond says Maher’s entrepreneurial roots aided the process of bringing the Maher team over in his teen years of owning small businesses. Maher is also a lawyer, CPA and former Edward Jones advisor who left the latter firm to join Merrill because he wanted to build a bigger team.