US-Based Baird Makes Big Splash In Pacific Northwest Via Merger

Eliane Chavagnon

10 April 2014

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Terms of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals, were not disclosed.

MWR is majority employee-owned and offers investment advisory, brokerage, equity research, bond and equity trading, asset management, institutional sales and investment banking from seven offices in the Pacific Northwest. Led by president and chief executive, Scott McAdams, and Brooks Ragen, chairman, the firm has 180 employees - including around 85 financial advisors - managing and overseeing some $10 billion in assets.

Baird is an international, employee-owned wealth management, capital markets, private equity and asset management firm, with $100 billion in client assets. The firm is led by Paul Purcell, chairman and CEO, and has around 2,900 associates including some 725 financial advisors across the US, Europe and Asia.

The firm has seen its private wealth management arm expand significantly in recent years, having hired over 325 financial advisors and branch managers since 2009 and set up shop in cities such as Portland, Maine; Charlotte, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Sarasota, Florida; Sioux City, Iowa; Houston and Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Francisco, California; and Portland, Oregon.

According to a statement, MWR was founded after “a wave of consolidation in the late 1990s left few independent, regional financial services firms in the Northwest.” The firm opened its doors with eight people in 1999 and in 2010 boosted its staff headcount by half while launching a handful of offices in Washington.

Last year, MWR and Baird had revenues of $48 million and $1 billion respectively.