Episode 27
In the latest episode of Growth Leaders of Wealth Management, we sit down with Simon Quick Advisors, a New Jersey-based firm that has tripled from roughly $3 billion to $9 billion in assets under management in the nine years since two Wall Street families merged their businesses. Managing Partner Chris Moore, Partner and Corporate Development Officer Mark DeLotto, and Chief Marketing Officer and Principal Darcy O'Brien explain what it looks like when alignment with clients is built into a firm's ownership structure, its investment vehicles, and even its choice of outside accountants.
Key Takeaways:
Two Wall Street families built this firm.
Les Quick founded Quick & Reilly with his father and brothers. After the liquidity event, he concluded that the firms available to him weren't solving everything his family needed. So he put up his own capital and started what became Simon Quick 22 years ago, with the Quick family as client number one.
Peter Simon was running William E. Simon & Sons, his family's single-family office. Multiple generations, multiple households, and the planes, cars, and boats that came with them.
By 2017, both were reassessing. The Simon side wanted a succession plan and a way to serve families beyond its own. The Quick side wanted more services in-house. That’s when they decided to merge.
Today, Simon Quick manages roughly $9 billion for 678 households, at an average relationship size of $13 million. The firm reports 97% client retention over the past five years.
"When we say that we're investing side by side with our clients, that means that we're putting our dollars–my capital, Mark's capital, Darcy's capital–into the same investment vehicles clients are in," Chris said. The firm also uses the same outside accountants and the same trust and estate attorneys as its clients.
The clearest illustration of that came earlier this year. Simon Quick has been investing in private markets since its founding, but it was late to package that access into a co-mingled vehicle. When it finally launched one, more than 30 colleagues put their own money in, which changes what Chris can say in a client meeting.
"We believe in it, which is why we're presenting it to you."
The family office capability works the same way. Rather than hiring into a gap, the merger brought over a team with nearly 30 years of operating history, along with the vendor relationships and the accumulated knowledge of what these families need. That's what makes the firm's ideal client range, roughly $10 million to $50 million in investable assets, serviceable at all. And families who don't need those services today still want to know the option is there if their lives get more complicated.
In 2019, the firm widened its cap table substantially, going from a concentrated group of about five owners to 15 "seemingly overnight," as Mark put it, and to 34 today.
"We don't want an organization that is owned by one or two people," Chris said.
With no outside capital partner setting annual return or growth targets, the firm screens differently. Its most recent acquisition came from a founder who evaluated close to 20 platforms and chose based on qualitative fit before economics.
About five years ago, the firm hired a credible agency and invested in paid acquisition. Traffic went up. Leads did not, because the website had never been optimized to capture them.
Darcy's read: "It was a story of putting the cart before the horse." So the order flipped, and a custom site came first, with keyword strategy, messaging, and ideal client profile designed in, then landing pages, then paid. That program launched in the middle of 2024 and took about 12 months to produce results.
Two to three transactions a year, and a marketing function Darcy expects to run with more capacity than headcount. Mark is watching cyber risk and the effects of outside capital moving through the industry. Chris is thinking further out, about which client generations will stay drawn to a personal advisory relationship as their technology improves. His working answer is that people become more valuable, not less, as the tools get better.
Ficomm Partners is the embedded growth partner for results-driven RIAs, and wealth management platforms. With a track record of helping over 250 clients achieve their growth goals, Ficomm understands that while industry patterns may repeat, each firm's growth challenges are unique. Ficomm prioritizes strategy and finds the most impactful ways to move you toward your goals. We align all your marketing activities with your business objectives, acting as your dedicated growth partner with our human-first approach, strategy-first methodology, and unrivaled team of industry marketing experts. For more information, visit ficommpartners.com