Investment advisory sees opportunities in big-firm fallout, bond management. Multifamily office Highmount Capital has hired a couple of wealth-management professionals formerly associated with the Boston-based boutique North American Management (NAM). On the investment side, Highmount has tapped David Thompson to lead the firm's five-member fixed-income team. And, to bolster its business-development efforts, it has added Nancy Brickley to its Client Services team.

Thompson and Brickley work out of Highmount's Boston office.

Necessary strength

Given recent -- and arguably on-going -- turmoil in the financial-service industry, Highmount partner Stephen Hoch sees "an excellent opportunity to attract new clients to an independent boutique like ours." Brickley will "play a decisive role in what we see as an opportune market for client acquisition," he adds.

Meanwhile, Highmount partner Maarten Van Hengel says Thompson's appointment reflects Highmount's determination to find someone with the "depth of experience and talent [to] add the necessary strength to match our growing interest in bond management."

Brickley -- who shouldn't be confused with the Nancy Brickley who is a Boston-area broker with Smith Barney -- left NAM, where she was head of sales and client service, in 2008. She joined Highmount this year after a stopover at Momentun Partrners, a Medfield, Mass-based business consultancy. Earlier, she led the internal money-management arm of Boston-based investment bank H.C. Wainwright, worked as a wealth manager with PNC Advisors (now PNC Wealth Management), and served with BankBoston (now part of Bank of America) in private banking, capital markets and institutional asset-management sales. She began her career as a trust officer with Bank of New England (now also part of Bank of America).

Thompson had been NAM's head of fixed-income investing. He held a similar position at Hale and Dorr Wealth Advisors -- another Boston-based advisory, since re-named Silver Bridge Advisors -- until he left early in 2007 (to be replaced by Michelle Knight, formerly of Atlantic Trust). He was also director of fixed-income and funds management at Bank of America and its predecessors, BankBoston and Fleet Bank.

Highmount has $1.3 billion under management. In addition to U.S. offices in Boston and New York, it has a new office in Amsterdam.

The name "Highmount" comes from ski resort and summer camp in the Catskill Mountains of New York where Hoch and Van Hengel worked together as teenagers. -FWR

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