The deep-benched de novo is impressed by outsourcer's grasp of trust issues. Evercore Wealth Management (EWM), a subsidiary of investment bank and asset manager Evercore Partners, has turned to wealth-advisory service provider Fortigent to help it streamline its manager-selection procedures.

"Our business model calls for having access to best-in-class external managers in asset classes we find attractive," says EWM partner Christopher Zander. "So we'll take [Fortigent's] experience and expertise in performing third-party due diligence, sourcing traditional and alternative managers, and use that information in our own due-diligence processes."

Trust

The industrial-strength due diligence and performance reporting Fortigent offers "are big differentiators in the marketplace today," according to the firm's investment-research and strategy chief Scott Welch. "By partnering with Fortigent, EWM can focus on [achieving 'trusted advisor' status] via a boutique-style service model, and [they] can leverage our investment expertise to offer an institutional quality solution."

Zander, who headed the ultra-high-net-worth team at Bank of America's U.S. Trust unit before joining EWM shortly after its launch late last year, says he also sees value in Fortigent's data aggregation and consolidated performance reporting capabilities.

Fortigent won additional favor with EWM by showing it knew how to make its platform work with EWM's trust capabilities -- a result, says EWM's founder and CEO Jeffrey Maurer, of the outsourcer's antecedents as the back office and investment platform of multifamily office Lydian Wealth Management (now Convergent Wealth Advisors).

"Most affluent clients are looking for a wealth management firm and trust company they can work with for the long term and that can provide continuity over generations," says Maurer. "[Fortigent's] evolution from being part of a client-facing business gives them an understanding of wealth-management issues and I feel it makes them a good fit for us."

Fortigent's sales director John Yackel sees the tie-in with EWM as a banner liaison in the making. "Our relationship with [EWM] will prove to be an exceptional partnership," he says. "[EWM] has the experience and expertise to work with the most sophisticated clientele while still maintaining a client-centric service model" and Fortigent equips it to "provide high-net-worth investors with a comprehensive and objective wealth-management solution that meets their often complex needs."

Maurer, a former head of Lehman Brothers' trust company and CEO of U.S. Trust, launched EWM in November 2008 to provide wealth-management services to clients with $5 million or more in investable assets. With an experienced professional staff of over 20, the firm is already closing in on $1 billion in assets under management.

Rockville, Md.-based Fortigent has more that 50 institutional clients and more than $20 billion in end-client assets on its platform. -FWR

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