Former leaders of high-profile MSSB team go independent

FWR Staff

1 September 2009

Sullivan Group splits; breakaways say new status in line with clients' interests. Former Morgan Stanley Smith Barney brokers Sean Lehmann and Kurt Halverstadt have taken an iteration of the Sullivan Group -- a Sacramento, Calif.-based advisory group they've been associated with for 15 and 11 years respectively -- back to independence.

"Our move to become independent is based on our desire to represent the best interests of our clients," says Lehmann. "As independent advisors, we offer our clients transparency and objective advice, free from conflicts of interest often experienced by wirehouse stockbrokers."

Close call

Tom Sullivan, now a talk-radio host, founded the Sullivan Group a quarter of a century ago as an independent investment firm. Lehmann joined in 1994 and Halverstadt came aboard in 1998, by which time the group had long given up its standalone status for affiliation with a succession of big-name firms including First Union Securities, Wells Fargo Investments, Wachovia Securities , Morgan Stanley and, as of June 2009, MSSB.

But in this market environment it's just as well to put distance between the advisor and big financial-service brands, according to Halverstadt. "Many people don't realize how close the major financial institutions came to a near meltdown last year," he says. "We felt that we needed to distance ourselves from the Wall Street conglomerates to protect our clients."

Lehmann and Halverstadt managed the wirehouse-affiliated version of the Sullivan Group afterTom Sullivan left to join Fox''s Business Networkin 2007. At MSSB they managed more than $500 million in client assets. They will not be joined by broker Bradley Sullivan, a member of the MSSB-affiliated Sullivan Group ; nor will their former client-service associates Mary Christine Passalaqua and Deann Blalock be making the leap from MSSB. -FWR

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