Multi-Generational Merrill team in Chicago finds Sanctuary provided the right balance of support, freedom, flexibility, and optionality.
While we knew we had outgrown the wirehouse, our team didn’t want to go out on our own. In Sanctuary, we found a partner that provides the right balance of support, freedom, flexibility, and optionality we were looking for in a new home.
James Corrigan
Managing Partner
Burnham Harbor Private Wealth
A multi-generational team had a vision to “empower their clients to think big, plan thoughtfully, and execute with precision.” And likewise, they had a vision of business ownership and building a business with an enduring legacy.
Yet in the eyes of four partners, Jim Corrigan, David Holtkamp, Sean Jucas, and Ken Shay, that prospect was becoming less possible at Merrill.
While the team built an extraordinary business managing $1B in client assets, they felt limited at the firm and were drawn to innovating how they served clients and grew the business.
Each having some 16 years at Merrill, Ken was the tenured advisor of the team with five decades in wealth management and who could have opted to sign on to Merrill’s retire-in-place program CTP. But the group thought that they had essentially outgrown Merrill and signing on would only limit the real potential of the next gen leaders—and Jim, David, and Sean had a long runway ahead of them.
After conducting an 18-month due diligence process guided by Diamond Consultants, they looked across the entire landscape—including other wirehouses, regionals, boutiques, and the IBD and RIA spaces.
By understanding the team’s needs and goals, we provided objective counsel, and helped to compare, contrast, and negotiate to narrow the options to what would be a compelling and unique solution based on our connectivity and knowledge of the space.
Ultimately the team determined that business ownership would be the most meaningful for their future, but they didn’t want to build an independent firm on their own. So they opted to launch Burnham Harbor Private Wealth in Chicago with Sanctuary Wealth.
Sanctuary checked all the boxes for the team and then some, including the fiduciary RIA structure and the ability to create a flexible buyout program for Ken, which will be at preferential tax treatment after one year, and includes a premium compared to Merrill’s CTP terms.
“In Sanctuary, we found a partner that provides the right balance of support, freedom, flexibility, and optionality we were looking for in a new home. Sanctuary’s management team understood the model we were coming from,” Jim shared. “Through our due diligence process, Sanctuary provided us the means to operate in a way that was familiar, with more efficiency, fewer distractions, and the respect to allow us to run our business the way we think is best.”
“Being independent means providing objective advice, offering unconstrained solutions, and operating as fiduciaries to protect the best interests of clients,” added Sean. “It also means being nimble and cutting edge across every aspect of our business—a big advantage over the bigger and slower traditional firms.”
Diamond Consultants is pleased to have represented the Burnham Harbor team and looks forward to hearing more about their growth in the future.
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