Boston-based multifamily office Silver Bridge Advisors has hired
former
Wilmington Trust managing director Benjamin Ledyard as
business head for its mid-Atlantic region. He will be responsible
for business development in along the US Eastern Seaboard roughly
between New York and Washington, DC.
In 2004, 2005 and 2007 Worth magazine ranked Mr Ledyard,
who joined Wilmington, Del.-based Wilmington Trust in 1998, among
the top 100 wealth advisors in the US.
"Ben brings a proven track record of creating, implementing, and
managing sophisticated wealth-planning strategies for
high-net-worth individuals and families," says Silver Bridge's
president and chief Stephen Prostano.
Most recently, Mr Ledyard was a senior advisor at Wilmington
Trust, a director of its wealth strategies team and head of the
its family-office subsidiary on the US East Coast.
In addition to his buisness-building role with Silver Bridge, Mr
Ledyard will establish and operate a trust company with a view to
making Delaware-trust services available to Silver Bridges
clients throughout the US.
Silver Bridge's chief investment officer Thomas Manning says
Ledyard's appointment is in keeping with the firm's goal of
providing "our clients with the highest level of personalized
service and validates our ability to continue to attract top
industry talent."
Mr Ledyard is Silver Bridge's fourth high-profile hire in about
nine months. In May, it hired US Trust portfolio manager Lynne
Dombroski as a principal and client advisor. Earlier this year,
it installed Allison Taff, formerly head of business development
and marketing for Fidelity's Family Office Services group, as
head of its own family-office support offering. Late last fall,
the firm added former Lehman Brothers executive Deirdre Prescott
as its director of client development.
Silver Bridge, known as Hale and Dorr Wealth Advisors until late
last year, is an 80-year-old affiliate of the Boston-based law
firm WilmerHale. The wealth advisory says the name change is part
of campaign, begun in 2005 with Prostano's arrival from Atlantic
Trust, to make it more efficient and competitive.
Among other recent initiatives is a plan to put about half of the
firm's equity in the hands of its employees, an expanded
investment platform intended to accommodate outside as well as
in-house products, and new data-aggregation and
performance-reporting systems of its own design and construction.
Mr Ledyard says he's "impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit
that permeates the Silver Bridge culture, the firm`s independent
and sustainable business model, and the significant investments
made in its technology, operations and reporting platform."
Silver Bridge had about $1.2 billion in assets under management
late in July 2009, according to the firm's most recent ADV filing
with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
