Acquisition extends Silvercrest Asset Management's presence in New England. Multifamily office Silvercrest Asset Management has acquired Marathon Capital Group, a Boston-based RIA that provides investment advice, financial-planning and intergenerational wealth-transfer services to high-net-worth clients.

"This strategic acquisition of one of Boston's leading wealth-management boutiques enables us to strengthen Silvercrest's presence in the important New England market," says Silvercrest's CEO and co-founder Moffet Cochran.

Silvercrest has approximately $9.4 billion in assets under administration and management. Marathon oversees about $600 million.

Hybrids

The firms decline to provide financial details of the transaction.

While New York-based Silvercrest gets a physical foothold in Boston through Marathon, Marathon, which will be re-branded as a Silvercrest office, gains access to Silvercrest's family-office services and a broader array of investment offerings, including alternatives.

Silvercrest and Marathon are fee-only firms that provide a blend of in-house and non-proprietary investment products. Silvercrest's homegrown offerings include fixed income and a value approach to equities; Marathon's proprietary roster includes fixed income and growth-at-a-reasonable-price equity.

Marathon's CEO Todd Kanter will join Silvercrest as a managing director and a member of its portfolio-management committee.

"My first priority is to continue to meet or exceed our clients' expectations," says Kanter. "And I am fully confident from my prior association with Moffett and other key members of Silvercrest that this will be achieved."

No. 4

The "prior association" Kanter alludes to is Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ; now part of Credit Suisse). While Cochran was chairman of the then-AXA-owned investment bank's asset-management group and Silvercrest's COO Martin Jaffe was in an analogous role in the same unit, Kanter was in charge of DLJ's Boston office and co-manager of its high-net-worth group. Out of a total headcount of around 100, about 30 other Silvercrest staffers are former DLJ employees.

Marathon is Silvercrest's fourth acquisition. In 2004 it bought New York-based fixed-income manager James C. Edwards Asset Management. In 2005 it added Charlottesville, Va.-based Heritage Financial Management, an investment advisory and multifamily office with a scalable family-office-service offering. And in 2006 it acquired LongChamp, a New York-based investment-research firm that began as a European family office.

Silvercrest is 70% employee owned; the balance belongs to Vulcan Capital, the private-investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's private holding company.

In addition to its New York headquarters and its new location in Boston, Silvercrest has an office in Charlottesville, Va. -FWR

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