Banyan continues to expand, adding two firms, $1B in assets

Banyan Partners LLC said today it had agreed to acquire Plano, Texas-based Rushmore Investment Advisors Inc. and Madison, Wis.-based Holt-Smith Advisors Inc., with combined assets under advisement of about $1 billion.

The deals are the sixth and seventh acquisitions Banyan has made in the last five years. The two new firms will operate under the Banyan Partners name. John Vann, chief executive of Rushmore, and Marilyn Holt-Smith, chief executive of her eponymous firm, will become partners of Banyan.

Both firms are money managers that have verified performance under the Global Investment Performance Standards, which should help Banyan add institutional clients, said Peter Raimondi, Banyan's founder and chief executive. The deals also give Banyan a presence in the central states, Mr. Raimondi added.

On the equity side, Holt-Smith has strategies for large-cap growth, large-cap value, mid-cap growth and tactical, and a fixed-income product with actively managed duration.

Rushmore runs equity income, non-U.S. equity and large-cap-growth strategies. The firm has about $850 million in assets, half of it from institutional clients.

“We've been zero institutional up this point,” Mr. Raimondi said. “We haven't been GIPS-verified because we weren't playing in the institutional market.”

Banyan has expertise in equities and options management.

Mr. Vann, 65, will move into more of a “rainmaker” sales role that will allow him to work as long as he wants, Mr. Raimondi said. “John has a good reputation in the high-net-worth and institutional space.”

Mr. Vann, who started with E.F. Hutton & Co. in 1973, is well-known in the investment management consulting industry. He founded Rushmore in 1996.

By joining Banyan, the Holt-Smith firm should be able to grow, Mr. Raimondi said. It has about $100 million under management.

Ms. Holt-Smith's firm will be “a hub for any kind of Midwest expansion,” Mr. Raimondi said. “If an opportunity shows up, we've got someone there now.”

Terms of the deals were not disclosed. Mr. Raimondi said Holt-Smith was purchased for cash, and the Rushmore deal was part cash and part equity.

The two acquisitions are being financed from capital raised last January from Temperance Partners, a private-investment firm that took a minority stake in Banyan.

Mr. Raimondi wouldn't disclose the size of his war chest, but said he will still have more than half of his private-equity capital after closing on his latest purchases.

Banyan now will have 85 employees in 10 locations around the U.S.

In addition to the newly aquired firms in Madison and Plano, the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Banyan has offices in New York, Boston, Atlanta and San Francisco, and three locations in Florida: Naples, Coral Gables and! Miami.

Last June, Baynan added wealth management capabilities by agreeing to acquire Silver Bridge Advisors LLC, a Boston-based firm with $2.2 billion in assets that was owned by the Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP law firm.