Virginia advisors start South Dakota trust company

FWR Staff

21 July 2009

Founders say there's demand for all-in-one service from boutique providers. In response to demand from their clients, wealth managers Daryl Bank and Gregory Bodoh, principals of Virginia Beach, Va.-based Dominion Investments Group have secured approval to charter a trust company.

Dominion Trust Company will be established with $100 million in client assets. Though headquartered in Pierre, S.D., Bodoh and Bank expect to operate the firm from their office in Virginia Beach.

"I have received countless numbers of requests for trust services over the years," says Bank. "After making many referrals, I found that my clients have received poor service and very little attention. This made us realize that we can do a better job by being a provider that does everything."

Till death

In the event, Dominion Trust's service roster will include money management, personal trust services, retirement planning, and alternative investments.

Growth strategies for Dominion Trust include positioning to high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients as an all-in-one source for money management and trust services and outreach to attorneys who are personally serving as trustees for trusts, and banks interested in outsourcing trust services.

Bank and Bodoh see sharp asset growth for Dominion Trust in 2010, with new and existing clients as well as relationships with other firms fueling a rise to $300 million by the end of the year.

Trust company startups are becoming more common as advisors seek to retain assets of an aging baby-boomer client base, according to Garrison Institutional, a consultancy that helps RIAs, broker-dealers, pension-service providers, law firms and mutual-find companies around the U.S. establish Nevada- and South Dakota-licensed trust companies of their own.

Earlier this year a small consortium of Dallas-area RIAs had Garrison Institutional's help in winning a trust license from South Dakota regulators for Wealth Advisors Trust -- which already has over $40 million in client assets and intends to grow that to over $100 million by the end of the year, according to Christopher Holtby, president of Wealth Advisors Trust and head of RIA Midland Asset Management.

Holtby shares with Bank and Bodoh the view that clients are looking an all-in-one provider. "A wealth manager must be able to offer trust services or get taken out of the equation," is his flat assessment. "Unless the wealth manager is directing the client conversation regarding legacy planning, he can sit back and watch his assets flow out of his firm after his client passes away." -FWR

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