Baird has added The Caprara & Hain Financial Group - latterly of Wells Fargo - to its new wealth management office in Merritt Island, FL.

Financial advisors Jim Caprara, director, and Chris Hain both started their careers in the financial services industry as investment advisors at AG Edwards - Caprara in 1997 and Hain in 2003. They moved to Wachovia and Wells Fargo in 2007 and 2008, respectively, following company mergers.

This office is located at 150 N. Sykes Creek Pkwy, Suite 100, and operates in conjunction with Baird’s existing Sarasota South branch. 

John Mabee, a managing director and vice chairman of private wealth management at Baird, told Family Wealth Report: “Although we are not looking to open satellite offices, every once in a while we are lucky enough to find financial advisors who have all the qualities we are looking for at Baird...They [Caprara and Hain] will have an office in Merritt Island which Paul Buskey, branch manager of our Sarasota South office, will have supervision over.”

In related developments, at the end of January Baird said it is planning to open a new wealth management office in the Northeast and brought in Peter Miller from Wells Fargo to lead the effort. Miller is charged with recruiting experienced advisors in the Northeast to staff a new office there; the precise location of the new office has not been determined yet. Miller himself will be based at the firm’s St Louis office.                                           

Baird, an employee-owned firm, has added more than 250 advisors and branch managers since the start of 2009, as well as opening in the new markets of Portland, ME, Salt Lake City, UT, Fort Worth, TX, and Portland, OR.

The firm has some $99 billion in client assets, as at December 31 2012.