United Capital Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor, has added Seattle-based Paragon Investment Management to its national partnership of firms.

United Capital Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor, has added Seattle-based Paragon Investment Management to its national partnership of firms.

Paragon is headed by Shari Burns, who founded the firm in 1991 after 13 years at Rainier Bank, where she was instrumental in setting up the private client group and private banking operations. Paragon works with wealthy families, with its wealthiest clients having assets of up to $100 million, and has $1 billion in assets under management. Its average relationship is around $4.5 million and client portfolios are invested in individual stocks and bonds, managed by an experienced investment team of 6 CFAs and 2 CFPs.

As Burns points out, the firm has worked with many families since its founding, working across generations. Relationships of this kind require stability and intimacy, but Burns is confident that partnering with a larger RIA won’t disrupt this. “Nothing is really changing” where clients are concerned, she said, as they will deal with the same people they always have, and receive the same reporting and investment service, with their assets custodied at the same firms. Paragon will also be retaining its brand in the Northwest, at least for the time-being.

However, to ensure clients are comfortable, Paragon’s staff has spent the last three months explaining the changes, and the motivations for them, to clients.

Burns is excited about the opportunities this deal offers – both for employees and clients. The cost of technology and regulation, for example, can hold smaller firms back. “Compliance and all the new rules have really exploded,” she says, and part of the motivation for partnering with UCFA was to take away some of this burden and “free ourselves up” to focus on clients.

A lot of potential buyers have approached Burns over the years but she was never tempted before United Capital. “We really like all the people…the whole group at United is very high quality.” She sees the partnership “growing and developing,” with broader reach and better ability to segment markets.

Including its investment and operations staff, Paragon is bringing a team of 15 to UCFA, with Burns joining as a managing director. United Capital, which was founded in 2005, has 316 employees and around $15 billion in assets under advisement, as at the end of 2012.

It is focused on expansion in the following markets: Atlanta, Boston, New York/ Tri-State Region, Los Angeles/Orange County, Phoenix/Scottsdale, St Louis, Seattle, Portland, Tampa, Memphis, Minneapolis, St Paul, Cincinnati.

For Burns, aside from the platform benefits of being part of a larger RIA, the deal also offered more certainty about her firm’s future. “As you get older, you think about succession planning,” she told Family Wealth Report, “and this allows the firm to carry on.” One of the most attractive aspects of this is that it creates more opportunities for Paragon’s employees, and “employees are very important,” says Burns. “Almost as important as clients,” she quips.