The wealth management house, based in 12 Southern US states, says its AuM growth has accelerated in the past decade.

Ruston, Louisiana-based Argent Trust Company has added another senior figure to its ranks, a sign of a firm looking to sustain the faster growth momentum it has logged in recent years.

Yesterday, the business announced that Mollie Seymour has as senior vice president/trust officer in its Birmingham office. Seymour manages personal and charitable relationships. A few weeks prior to this, Argent said named Mark Milton as senior vice president of institutional services, based in its New Orleans office. He reports directly to Argent chief executive Kyle McDonald. (In Seymour’s case, she reports to Ken Alderman, president of Argent Trust.) And in March, Argent appointed Sue Turnage to run the newly-opened office in Fort Worth, Texas.

The organization, part of the Argent Financial Group, has seen its growth accelerate in the past decade, now overseeing a total of more than $17 billion in client assets. The business, serving 12 Southern states, caters to families and firms with services spanning investment, family office services, charitable organization and managing mineral (oil and gas) rights. The latter area is important for a firm with a footprint in states such as Texas and other parts of the South, for instance.

The expansion is happening at the time when Argent is seeing more demand for its family office services, employee stock ownership plan work, mineral management services and consulting around how to run charities, CEO McDonald told Family Wealth Report in a recent call. (Traditional “family trust” services are less in demand, he said.)

Formed back in 1990, Argent has been able to fill gaps in a marketplace sometimes overlooked by other institutions, he said. Asked what sort of firms he takes inspiration from, he named Bessemer Trust. 
“Our view is that the wealth management market in the South is very fragmented and devoid of scaled fiduciary services firms. We felt there was a path to building a substantial firm,” McDonald continued. 
Growth has accelerated considerably. In 2009, the firm had $1.5 billion of client assets. McDonald said in 2009 organic growth and acquisitions propelled the change, noting that takeovers were financed with stock and bank financing, rather than through private equity backing. (As this publication knows, there are mixed views in the wealth sector as to whether private equity firms, looking to boost investment multiples, are the most benign of owners.) 

The South has plenty of regional and national banks that operate, but there is a space for fiduciaries and independent wealth managers able to reach scale, McDonald said. 

Clients appear to like its revenue model, if the recent AuM growth is anything to go by. “The vast majority of our revenue is a fee on the market value of assets under management/administration. Some revenue comes from negotiated, fixed fees. Mineral management services are typically a percentage of client revenue,” McDonald said.