Bank association's retail unit adds Sage360 for wealth-management services. ICBA Financial Services -- the retail investment- and insurance-service company of the
Independent Community Bankers of America, a Washington, D.C.-based industry association -- has expanded its wealth-management platform to include the services of
Sage360 Advisors, an Albany, N.Y.-based wealth-management firm, as an offering to the owners, managers and board members of independent community banks.

"For the families, owners, executives and directors [of] community banks, planning for and managing their personal assets can be critical in enabling a community bank to remain a community bank," says Jeff Nunn, chairman of ICBA Financial Services and CEO of Claude, Texas-based
Citizens Bank, "ICBA Financial Services is taking the next step in offering wealth management by adding Sage360 advisors, a highly specialized team of experts who provide strategic planning advisement for bank owners and their families."

Sage360 was formed about two year ago when estate-planning attorneys Philip Toffel and Kathleen Peer -- pals since their law school days in the mid 1970s -- joined forces after several decades in wealth management. The firm, which provides financial-, estate and tax services in addition to investment advisory, manages about $300 million for 25 business-owning families across the U.S.

Power of the press

The tie-in with ICBA Financial Services "is a very big initiative for us," says Toffel. "This is an engagement for the top echelon of community bank owners and their families." From there though, it could easily extend to the top-tier clients of these banks, he adds, particularly as bank-board members get wind of the offering.

Sage360 became a premium component of ICBA Financial Services' wealth-management program as a result of a piece in the investment-industry trade publication Investment News.

"I read an article about what the ICBA was doing for banks, and I thought there was an opportunity for us there as well," says Toffel.

So he called the ICBA with a pitch to make Sage360 a provider to community-bank customers through ICBA Financial Services -- and, after months of due diligence, the ICBA countered with the idea that Sage360 should figure, initially anyway, as an offering to the banks' owners and other brass.

In addition to the high-end planning services of Sage360, ICBA Financial Services offers ICBA members the investment-banking and investment-advisory services of Chicago-based
Howe Barnes Hoefer & Arnett. -FWR

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