Build, Grow & Transact: Americana’s $12B Path from Breakaway to Enterprise

Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today's episode is Build, Grow and transact Americana's $12 billion path from breakaway to enterprise. It's a conversation with Jason Fertitta, CEO and partner of Americana Partners. I'm, um, Lewis diamond and this is the diamond podcast for financial advisors.

Speaker B: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that's at a warehouse, boutique or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we've guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned and each year one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you're even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they're headed or trans going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual Advisor Transition Report. It's the award winning data driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm's appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transition report.

Speaker A: Independence is often viewed as the finish line. Break away, gain control, own the business and enjoy the economics that come with it. But for some advisors, going independent is just the beginning. That's the idea behind this new series called Build, Grow and Transact, featuring advisors who saw independence not as a destination but but as the first chapter of a business building story. And there will be some familiar names along the way, including our first guest who was on our show back in 2020 talking about what was at the time one of the industry's breakaway moves. That's Jason Fertitta, CEO and founding partner of Americana Partners. When Jason and his partners left Morgan Stanley In 2019, they started Americana with approximately 2.6 billion in client assets and a vision that extended well beyond becoming a successful independent firm. Today, Americana oversees more than 12 billion, has expanded nationally, completed multiple acquisitions, built out a professional management team, and brought on institutional capital to support its next phase of growth. What makes Jason's perspective valuable is that he's now experienced independence through several different lenses. As a breakaway advisor, as a founder, as a builder of enterprise value, and now as the leader of a firm actively pursuing acquisitions and recruiting talent from across the industry. We talk about the decisions that fueled Americana's Growth. Why Jason has always viewed the business through a long term lens. What changed when private equity entered the picture? And why maximizing enterprise value often requires a very different mindset than maximizing current income. For advisors who think independence is a destination, Jason's story offers a look what can happen when it's treated as a starting point instead. So let's get to it. Jason, thanks for coming back on our show today.

Speaker C: Pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Speaker A: You got it. Yeah. You're our first guest in our new sub series, so you should feel honored. And I'm honored too, because the last time we had you on the show, Americana was about a year old. You're navigating Covid and all those challenges. But for listeners who may not remember the episode, can you give us a quick version of the origin story of Americana and what the firm looked like when you first launched it?

Speaker C: Yeah, I believe if, um, I'm remembering correctly, I was in Colorado talking to you guys, and it was right after we launched. So that was a fun but stressful time. I think at the time that we launched, it was certainly the road less traveled. Most teams go from one warehouse to another. We had an entrepreneurial itch. There was 11 of us that started the firm. We actually launched the firm from this exact building that we're in here. But all of this was under construction. We were in temporary space one floor below on card tables and pizza boxes and all the things that you can envision when you think of a startup. But yeah, we weighed all of our options in terms of going from one firm to another, staying where we were, and had a lot of talks with ourselves and our spouses, and they were all very supportive. So when you do something like this, you're certainly scratching the entrepreneurial itch that I think is required for somebody that wants to try and build their own company. And I think we're all satisfying that itch in different ways. We all had a lot of other outside business interests. I'm passionate about the restaurant industry because it's what I grew up in as a kid and so had opened some restaurants with some chefs that I really admire. And we're doing things like that to scratch the itch, but there's no other way to do it than doing that and your profession. And so we decided to launch the firm. We also just felt like Texas being such a wealthy state, there really wasn't a regionally dominant RIA from here. There's a lot of big RIAs in the Northeast and the Northwest and the West.

Speaker A: Coast.

Speaker C: And, uh, we just felt like Texas was ready to hopefully be able to support the concept of launching it from the state and then expanding it out regionally, nationally from here. So those were all thoughts in our heads and dreams. And we've worked really hard to get to where we are, but I think we're in a great spot right now for another leg of growth.

Speaker A: Amazing. I would say that plan has certainly worked out when you're on our show last in. In 2019, the firm was at about 2.6 billion at time of launch. And now I saw in news articles in your adv, it's. It's north of 12 billion, but I'm sure it's even larger now. So can you walk through just what's the makeup of the firm today? How many partners and advisors? What's the profile of the end client? What markets are you in? In and around Texas or around the country?

Speaker C: Yeah. So today we're roughly a hundred employees, right? At 13 billion in AUM, I would say we have six offices. Houston, Austin, Dallas, Midland, Beverly Hills, and Nashville. We have about 30 advisors. 30 financial advisors. And our average account size, I would say, is right around $20 million. That's not a rule. It's just the way it is. We have some wonderful accounts that are 2 or 3 million, and we have some great accounts that are well over a billion. And in terms of the makeup of the firm, uh, since the time we've spoken, and we'll get into this later, but we have brought in private equity. We have about nine families that are owners of the firm with us. So it's really families, private equity, and employees. That's the cap table currently.

Speaker A: Very cool. As far as building the firm geographically for the offices of Texas, that makes sense to your earlier comment about wanting to build a Texas dominant or a regionally dominant firm. But how'd you land in Beverly Hills, in Nashville? That's a little bit different.

Speaker C: Yeah, it is. I think so much of where we're going is secondary to who we're partnering with. I think we would go anywhere in the country if we had the right partner in that city. We're not necessarily saying we have to be in Atlanta. Let's find the right partners in Atlanta. It's more about we found the right partners in Atlanta. So we're going to Atlanta. And you meet these people everywhere. Everyone has their own Rolodex inside of our firm. Sometimes it's an employee here that has a relationship with someone that wants to break away and be part of an independent firm, sometimes it's me. There's a lot of golf DNA in our firm, so we've met a ton of people through the incredible game of golf. In fact, last weekend we just posted our first Americana cup golf tournament where we took over an entire club and invited 40 strategic invitations to people that could be helpful to our firm. I would say it's really just networking, trying to find like minded advisors that were very big at, uh, putting the client at the center of every decision you make. A lot of times you'll come across of an advisor that financially looks really good on paper, but they're maybe not always doing what's right by the client. We run from those situations. We'd rather have a financial advisor that perhaps statistically is inferior to that other one, um, on paper from a P and L perspective. But we feel like doing what's right by the client in the decisions. And that's usually the main factor for us in seeking out the right partners.

Speaker A: I love that. And one of the premises of this new sub series of ours is about growing and then of course recognizing that value through some sort of monetization. So to me, the star of your show is your insanely impressive growth, which I would assume comes from both organic means and also from inorganic, whether through M and A or recruiting teams from your predecessor firms or from other wirehouses. Can you talk a little bit about the breakdown of the two growth channels and how you pursue both organic and then inorganic growth?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think organic growth, the preference for anyone that's nrc because you don't have to pay for organic growth. It's just you have to expose your platform to potential clients and it has to be differentiated enough for them to move assets from another firm to yours. And I would tell you I think we do a really good job at that. We built an incredible platform that has and enables a financial advisor to have all the same arrows in the quiver that a big firm has. We've got an incredible alts department, we've got an incredible CIO that produces great research. We got incredible in house portfolio managers, both in the core equity space, but then also the municipal bond space. We have an incredible external manager platform that has everything from cash management on steroids to venture capital investing to co investing to direct investments into companies. So we have this really great platform. We also recognize that we want to grow through M and A as well. Because there's only so much time in the day you're not willing to add more employees and more like minded advisors to grow. So we do both. To your point. We absolutely do both. And we, and they're both equally as important on the M and A side. I would say it's been responsible for half of our AUM growth over the last seven years and the other half has been organic. And I think as we get bigger and bigger, that number is going to not stay consistent. I would say that if we could grow our AUM organically by 10% per year and then do five to seven acquisitions a year, combination of RIAs and M wall street lift outs, I think those are good goals for us and we're off to a good start and trying to achieve those goals.

Speaker A: I think if you pull off even half of that, I think your, uh, private equity sponsors and investors and employees would be very happy. Can we double click into the organic growth side? How do you view whether your growth rate changing organically since leaving Morgan to start the ria and if it has changed, what do you think are the things that are responsible for the faster growth or slower growth? If it's slower than when you're, uh, at Morgan?

Speaker C: One of the interesting secrets about being independent versus inside of a big bank is I think your clients will actually do more business with you if you're independent. I didn't realize that until we went independent. I had heard that before, but I was like, uh, that may or may not be true, but when we went independent and every time we recruit a team from a big bang, the same thing happens. It's like the clients are like, what took you so long? They very much, for the most part now it's not every client, but most clients I think prefer to be serviced by an advisor that's conflict free in the independent channel. Um, there are other clients that might have a big investment banking relationship with the big bank or something like that, like a business reason for not leaving or, uh, but in terms of just being able to service the client from an independent channel where you're a legal fiduciary, I think all the interest is aligned from client to service provider. And I, uh, just think it's easier to raise money in this channel than it is at a bank.

Speaker A: And you really think the types of clients you work with, or just clients in general, the difference maker is really the conflict free advice. I mean, like, obviously it sounds good, but I would argue that when you were at Morgan Stanley, uh, your team was one of the top teams in the country. You had an amazing reputation. You were probably giving similar quality advice then than you were today. So how has that really manifested Itself.

Speaker C: Yeah. I always say I think you can have a great experience at a firm that is perhaps not the most prestigious great firm in the country if you're with the right team. And I think you can also have a horrible experience at a firm with a great reputation if you're with the wrong team. So it is my belief the most important thing from the customer's perspective is who you're working with. I appreciate your comments about our team, and we work very hard to deserve the reputation that you're talking about. But I also think that when you're in the independent world, uh, some of the things the banks do very well is right. They have great investment platforms and a lot of due diligence in their products. So I think when you're an independent firm, you're obviously, you don't immediately have all of those same intangibles that a big bank has. So I think it was very important for us to invest heavily into those departments inside of our firm to where we could be on some equal footing with Wall street firms. And we have that. We have raised a lot of money for alternative managers. I think alternatives are a huge secret sauce that an independent advisor needs to have access to, because in a world where the public markets are getting more efficient and more commoditized, it's very challenging to grow organically the way that we have without some secret sauce. And I think the secret sauce lies within the alternatives, because it's very hard to differentiate yourself if you're just trying to optimize someone's public equity portfolio and improve where they sit on the efficient frontier. I think that's just a, uh, tough challenge. But if you can mix in some truly differentiated alternatives where access is a big component of the value proposition, then all of a sudden you bring in your clients something special and something that's unique.

Speaker A: I really like that perspective. I think you're completely right. I've always heard people say investments are commoditized, and it's all about advice and planning. But I think the way you framed it about the alpha essentially being, like, worked out of it. So it's the access and it's what you're doing different on the investment side, outside of the more basic or commoditized stuff. That's a difference maker. So when you launched the firm, and I believe still today, Americana hired Dynasty Financial Partners as your infrastructure partner. Now that you're Significantly larger your 7 years into your independent journey, how does the relationship with Dynasty change, if at all? What do they do for you that you benefit from differently today than when you first launched.

Speaker C: Yeah, it would have been impossible for us to do what we did without Dynasty's help. Dynasty has delivered for us in a meaningful way and they continue to. They're a great partner. We definitely are developing our own sea legs as well. Just because you have to, um, just by virtue of the size that you get to, um, But Dynasty, I think has been incredibly innovative in terms of launching an investment bank and bringing, I mean Dynasty's brought us deals, which is incredible. So just in addition to being an infrastructure partner, they've actually provided us deal flow. They're also because they're working with so many firms, you get in all sorts of situations as an independent firm and to have someone to pick up phone and say, here's what we're dealing with. And they'll say, oh, here are the three things you need to do. You either need to do it like this or this. So just a lot of experience within Dynasty. I don't know if we're Dynasty's biggest client or not, but I would say we're certainly in their top three. So we are looking to continue that relationship and always having a relationship with Dynasty. But I would describe it as evolving because we are. Our revenue is up 6x in the last 6 years.

Speaker A: Amazing. I uh, mean that makes complete sense. The needs of the business when you are leaving a big firm is got to get the clients over, got to build the plane before it can fly and understand how to do X, Y and Z to now it's enterprise building and optimizing and growing inorganically. So that makes complete sense and very cool to hear that Dynasty has evolved or morphed the relationship to meet you where you are now. And ah, to me, I think a big part of that is hiring professional management. That's always a question. We get when am I big enough? When's the right time to hire professional management? Whether it's a full time CEO, a cfo, a coo, et cetera. I know in your case, like fairly early on you hired Ron Thacker, who was a regional manager from Morgan Stanley. I saw recently you hired a cfo. So you're really professionalizing the leadership rogues. When did you know it was the right time to build a professional management team and how did you think about that evolution?

Speaker C: We knew from day one that's what we wanted to do. I think when you go independent, there's a couple of different schools of thought. One school of thought is I can go independent. I'm not going to really Have a boss. I'll be my own boss. I, uh, may or may not grow the business. I'm going to run it in a way that's lean. I might be able to have a little bit more of a take home because there's not a third hand in the cookie jar in terms of the bank. And it's a great lifestyle. I think that's one school of thought and I think that's great. That was not our school of thought. Our school of thought is we had a belief that in this country there's going to emerge five to ten regionally dominant RIAs. And these regionally dominant rias were going to enjoy economies of scale and they were going to compete with Wall Street. And in order to do that, we had to reinvest a lot of our profit in our business through building this management team that you're referencing. Even to this day, I don't make anywhere near the amount of income that I made when I was on Wall street, but I'm not. And it's because we're building equity value and we're building something that will last. And we, um, reinvest a lot of our cash flow into, uh, professionalizing the management team and then being able to deliver on that promise to the financial advisors that are here that you're going to have a platform that when you walk in the room, you're going to be able to compete with Wall Street. And so that's always been our goal, which is not necessarily everybody's goal when they go independent because it's a lifestyle decision really. I work way harder today than I worked when I was at a Wall street firm.

Speaker A: This is so interesting. Two threads I want to tug on from what you said. The first one is I think just the comment you made that you're making less today when the business is significantly larger than it was when you're at Morgan Stanley, you're working harder. Like that's. I think even that dynamic is going to feel like a shock to a lot of people. Right? Like if you're working harder, the business is doing six times more revenue than it was at Morgan Stanley. That's. That doesn't seem like a fair trade. How do you think about that relative to the equity value that you're amassing? Is that always the plan or is that kind of just something you've leaned into as the firm has grown and scaled?

Speaker C: Well, the third component you left out is my net worth is, uh, 10x, whereas if I would have stayed at a Wall street park and so are all the employees here. So if it's about that, I can tell you that we check that box. American is very valuable and we're happy about that. So it's really just about how you want to create that, right? If you want to create it through, uh, income and pay a lot of taxes along the way, stay at the Wall street firm. But if you want to create value for your, yourself and your partners and grow your balance sheet, you can do it in a much more tax efficient way in the independent world. And I'm light years ahead of where I would have been if I would have stayed at a Wall street firm.

Speaker A: I think that's the coolest realization I think someone can have. Right? It's, it's, we always say it's like, what do you value more? Is it the short term liquidity or certainty of getting a big upfront recruiting deal at Ordinary Income or staying where you are and keep making your 50% payout? Take advantage of your firm's retire in place program. And for many people, that's what they value. But for you, I think you, you very clearly and transparently articulated that, yeah, I might make less, but what really matters is my net worth. It's how much I'm actually netting for my family in the long run. So for people who want to play the long game, really buy into that concept. It sounds like following your path would be ideal, but it may not be for everyone.

Speaker C: It's a much better path and I'm living proof of it. And not only am I living proof of it, all of my partners are here and everybody that owns equity in Americana is living proof of it.

Speaker A: Amazing. You said you're working more now than

Speaker C: when you're at Morgan.

Speaker A: How is your day to day or day in the life changed? What types of activities are you doing more or less of? Uh, and how do you balance everything?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's hard to balance everything. It is. But I would say that one of the unique things about Americana is the founders are all financial advisors. We aren't consultants that came out of the consulting world or I mean, we're financial advisors. I'm still a financial advisor. I still cover clients. I would say a third of my time is actually covering the house accounts here with some of my original partners. A third of my time is firm related stuff. And then a third of my time is M and A. And that's not only M and A, but helping the advisors that are here grow their business also. And so I come across a lot of leads and opportunities. I'm not really taking them for the house account book or myself. I'm finding the right advisors that I feel like could service the clients the best and, and then I'm flipping them to them and sitting second chair. And I've seen some amazing growth to their businesses by just being able to send them leads.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's always like the tug of war for I think like Most founders of RIAs in this industry, they were advisors themselves. They were the rainmakers or they still are. But there's definitely some folks who, whether because of lack of time or they lose the spark or passion for working with clients, that they pivot to being full time CEO. Uh, or we've even seen people go the other way where they say, I was the CEO, I really just want to be an advisor, just do M, M and A. And I'm going to hire a CEO. So I, it's really cool to hear how you split up your time and you're able to do it all. And I'm sure it's not perfect. I'm sure, I'm sure your family wishes they saw you more and et cetera. But it sounds like you're able to really pursue your different passions.

Speaker C: All those three activities are very fun and they keep every day interesting. And you don't necessarily know at what points in the day you're going to be working on which bucket. And there's a lot of blend and overlap. But we, we spend a lot of time here working on behalf of our clients in the firm. And every day is an adventure and it but a spot. I mean it's a blast.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, let's uh, spend some time talking about your fairly recent capital raise. So In October of 2024, Americana announced that PE firm Lovell Minic Partners, uh, the firm's first outside institutional investor, was coming in to take a majority stake in the firm. So can you take us back to that decision? I'm sure it's still fairly vivid. Maybe M talk through it. And when did you first start to think seriously about bringing in capital?

Speaker C: Yeah, so probably at the end of 23 we looked down and there was a hundred million dollars worth of potential M and A that was fairly actionable that we could do. And the other M and A events we did were kind of small deals. 10, $20 million sometimes, but farms with 3, 400 in AUM to 600 million in AUM we were doing deals that size and we're just passing the hat and saying okay to the families that were in our cap table and to Ourselves, who wants to write a check? So the cap table was changing all the time based on people's buy into uh, an M and A transaction. And then so, but then when you sit down and you look at potentially $100 million of M& A, if every deal came through that you're in conversations around and we owned at the time 75% of the firm, the families on, um, 25. So if all that M and A were to have happened, we didn't have $75 million as employees, we were facing dilution. And we went to the families and said, hey, we don't mind being diluted but like we gotta know that if all of these came through, you guys want to invest another a hundred million into this business. And that's when they said, well we can. All the deals that you've done so far have been accretive and great, but like our value add to you is not M and A. It's not underwriting, it's not how to take this firm from 4 billion to 12 billion or customers. Why don't you contemplate bringing in an institutional partner to help around first base and go to second and third. And so I called a good friend, a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Dunn, who's legendary in the world of golf and business. He's a vice chair at Piper Sandler. I explained the situation and he said, well this is going to sound self serving, but I think you should hire me and my firm to run a process to find your partner.

Speaker A: Classic investment banker.

Speaker C: And uh, we did and he worked on a very small retainer and a contingency fee. And they helped us get ready to show the firm to the institutional world. And that took nine to 12 months of hard work to get ready. They ran the process. I think we had 30 firms sign the NDA. And uh, in the October of 24 month that you mentioned, I think we had 20 offers. And during that year we were getting to know a lot of the people that were going to be bidding on us. And we frankly were incredibly impressed by Level Medic, uh, and their success that they have had in investing in the wealth space. So we were always pulling for Level Minute to compete and compete well. Gotta run an honest process. And Level Minute was not the high bid, but they were a good, a very good and well thought out bid. That was easy for us to understand on why they were where they were. And for us it was about how can we create value from this point forward with the right partner to really grow the firm and scale it to where we wanted it to be. And so that was the more important driving factor in our decision to sell to Level Minute. Now, of course we wanted to sell a minority piece, but the reality is, given the activity that we had in our M and A pipeline at the time, they were going to eventually get to majority anyway. And so I may be skipping ahead a little bit in the podcast. Uh, I know what some of the questions are going to contemplate, and our thought was you're in a better position to negotiate minority rights before the transaction than later. Um, and so we got all of that out on the table in our negotiations with our private equity partner and then just got married immediately instead of had this weird period of where they ultimately were going to get to majority control through M and A. And then you have this awkward moment where that shift happens after you're already partners.

Speaker A: Very interesting. Was it a hard decision to give up majority control over, over your baby?

Speaker C: It definitely a lot of self reflecting on behalf of our team and everything. But I think where we came out with it, and I'm a big believer in this, is the people that really control the business are the people that control the relationships with the clients. Level Minick knows that. And we've never had a decision in a year and a half that we don't all arrive at the same place. We negotiate, we study. But they know that it's, it's not in their best interest to try and force the management team to do something that the management team is in, not in agreement on. Because at, uh, the end of the day, we're servicing all of these accounts. And look, we don't see eye to eye exactly on everything. No partners do. But we're generally in the same zip code on everything. And we talk things through until we all arrive at the same place that this is in the best interest of the company. And I think a big part of why that works so well for us in Level Minute. And I think this is very unique in the industry. It all goes back to we all own the same share class. We're all in the foxhole together. We all sink or swim together. There's no way one group can win and another group can lose. We all own the exact same security. Not only do we all own the exact same security, but our employees own it. The families that are in our cap table own it. And so every decision comes from the standpoint of how do we make decisions to benefit.

Speaker A: That security makes sense. It's still a tough decision, but I mean, you lay it out make it seem like an easy decision with the conviction you have and I think the very pure motivation to, to make that leap. Aside from capital to fuel M M and A, what are the other things that level MINIC is doing for your business to help it?

Speaker C: Well, they level minute and this is another thing that was impressive to us. They're always the first institutional capital until what's otherwise an entrepreneurial family owned business. So they're not afraid of building the things that you have to build to get ready to scale. They've seen it in every investment they've made. Um, and so that was very refreshing to us because frankly we wanted the help, we wanted the expertise, financial advisors, um, at heart. So like a lot of private equity firms, LMP has this third party advisory relationships with industry people and they've brought those people into our firm. Several sit on the board of the firm today and they've just been fantastic to work with. Some have more experience with FinTech, some have more experience with HR, some have more experience with actual investment platforms and product. Some have more experience in how to help clients optimize from a tax perspective. Some have family office experience. And so we've really benefited from this group of people and I would tell you that since they came into our world, which is about 18 months ago, we have been building a lot of things that are about to be unveiled to not only our financial advisors but our clients. And I think that the experience is just going to continue to get better for both of those segments.

Speaker A: Very cool. Yeah, it seems like a great fit. And I meant to ask you before because it's such a cool and I think still fairly novel concept, but what was the thinking behind having nine families, their customers or clients come in and buy some equity in the firm? Like why'd you do that? And then what's been, what's been the outcome of that?

Speaker C: It was more their idea than us after we launched the firm. And this kind of goes back to my original comments about the clients want to do more business with you when you're independent than you're when you're inside the bank. And we have a lot of clients that are entrepreneurial. And so I think when we explained to them the reasons why we were doing this and the reasons why we're so excited about it, they got excited about it too. Some clients, most clients. And so what they said was, yeah, we're going to move our money to it. You were excited about it, but if there's an opportunity, we'd also like to own a piece of the firm. And, uh, originally when they said that, I didn't know if they meant that they want us to give them. Um, but they wrote a check. They all wrote checks. So we set an arbitrary value of the firm, you know, in the first year after we launched it. And that wasn't a whole lot of science behind the value. It's basically what we would have been paid by walking across the street. And that was the original value. And they bought into the firm and then Level Minick really thought it was a nice, novel concept that they hadn't seen before, and they've embraced it. So when they invested, we brought another round of clients into the firm at that valuation. I think it's really powerful because what's important for us in these families is that they're all pillars of their respective communities and they're spread across all over the country and Mexico. Um, so we have some incredibly good reputation, great business people in Mexico City and Monterey and Los Angeles and Midland and Dallas and Austin and Houston. Houston. And so, and we're open to the concept of when we come into new markets, finding that pillar of the community, finding that family who people ask, what do you do with your money? We want them to say, well, we own our own wealth management firm. You want us to have M them call you, and they'll show you what we do with our money. And that's a powerful part of the organic growth and the flywheel.

Speaker A: I absolutely love that I oftentimes have clients, especially breakaway clients, talk about the, uh, how cool it would be to have a client or set of clients invest in their business. But the reasons why, like, I love that it's part of, like, a very consistent, repeatable strategy of identifying, like, key influencers essentially, in different markets and then having them come into the cap table. And I would assume too, the dynamic, uh, of, oh, you should call Jason. He's my financial advisor. He's great to, hey, you should come in and meet my firm. And I feel like clients are probably much more incentivized, naturally, to refer friends, family, et cetera. And just the power and dynamic of that referral is probably that much better than a referral from another happy customer who's not an investor.

Speaker C: Exactly. When we're looking at coming into a new city with a new partner, to the extent they have those clients in that community and they join us, we have a private equity, uh, partner that embraces that strategy and concept. So when we're talking to that Wall street advisor and they're interested in our business, model and our plan, I think that particular part of our business model is very differentiated and intriguing to them.

Speaker A: Amazing. You mentioned in your last answer that you have. It, uh, sounds like you have some investors in Mexico and that serving families in Mexico and Latin America as well. Can you talk about adding that capability or the openness to go international? That's clearly a big decision. It's a different risk profile, different client needs. So what was the thought process behind taking Americana? I guess, uh, I guess still in the Americas, but outside of America.

Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it is growing up in Texas. There's a lot of wonderful families from Mexico whose kids and grandkids have moved here. And our children are going to school with their children, and they're part of our community, and I think they're a great part of our community. And so I just started to notice how Wall street treated this community as just one. Right. Uh, and what we were able to do is cherry pick a few families that we knew very well that are incredibly good reputations in the cities that they're from and their origins are from. And there's a high desire on behalf of not only those families, but their friends to invest into the United States, into our economy. And given that a lot of their children and grandchildren live in the US These are families that have citizens in their family inside of the US and back home in Mexico. Most of these families, they've been going to our colleges. Uh, a lot of these families sit on the boards of Fortune 500 companies inside of the United States. So these are families that are very easy to do due diligence on. And frankly, we have learned a lot from them. They're very sophisticated families, and so they've been amazing partners. And we use bank of New York Pershing to custody a lot of these assets. And I think they're increasingly becoming more interested in alternatives as part of their portfolios. Because I think going back 15, 20 years ago, these families were mostly stocks, bonds, and cash. But as they continue to build out their own family offices, they're becoming more sophisticated and interested in alternatives. So it's really been an exciting part of our firm.

Speaker A: Did this expansion. Does it scratch the itch to go into different Latin American countries in Europe and Asia, or is that not really part of the roadmap?

Speaker C: Well, it's, uh, open to the concept. Like I said, the genesis of this for us was the fact that our children go to school with their children. And we got to know several families just through our social circles here in Texas. But I don't think that same phenomenon would exist in Europe, other Latin American countries per se, but we're certainly open to it. And there's a lot going on in Latin America. I mean, there's a lot going on and a lot of potential. So we are, we're open to anything that increases the footprint in the right way for Americana.

Speaker A: Great answer. Let's go back a little bit to talk a little bit more about your M and A strategy. You merged with your acquired Boulevard Family wealth, which was Matt Salenza's firm. I think Matt was our, the first breakaway guest on our show and an amazing advisor. You bought Good Pasture Gray in Nashville, and more recently you bought NRT Consulting. I think from my read, like, three different types of firms, different geographies. So how do you think about the M and A strategy?

Speaker C: I feel like we're building out a firm and departments in the firm, and each of those acquisitions goes into a different department of our firm. I think Matce, Lenza and Boulevard are fantastic, and they're really good at, uh, tax optimization strategies for families, and they're really innovative there. That is a very hot topic with all of our clients. More and more families are, uh, getting smart about the fact that not only does it matter what your returns look like, what really matters is how much of those returns you get a key. And so Matt and his team are incredibly sophisticated and cutting edge on tax optimization. And that's proliferating throughout our firm right now, which is, I think, making us even better at, ah, what we can advise and provide to our clients. So I would say that's more in the family office service and tax planning part of our firm. Good. Pastor Grace. Fantastic. WL who runs that firm or did prior to the, uh, the merger. I've known him for 30 years. He's a longtime family friend. His clients are in Nashville, Santa Fe and Texas. Hima father actually used to office together, and then ironically, he hired Dynasty to represent him to find the right partner. So that's an example where Full circle Dynasty brought him back. And I hadn't talked to him for decades, but we shared a bunch of fun stories about how I used to go up in college and hang out with him, he and my dad in their office. So that was a great kind of Full circle experience. But WL is just a fantastic financial advisor that kind of does what we've always done. So he's just a natural fit inside of our firm. And then, uh, nrt, Chris Ginsbach and his team, they're unbelievable. They, uh, do bookkeeping services for families, they're not signing tax returns. But the more sophisticated these families get, some of These families have 35 to 45 to 55 different LLCs that require bookkeeping services. So he's an accountant by training, so is everyone that works there. And I think that there's a lot of cross pollinating with our client base that wants bookkeeping services for their needs. So with all of these different M and A events, it's trying to meet or have the ability to meet your client wherever their pain points are. And some of your clients pain points are in bookkeeping and accounting, some are in tax optimization, and some are just good old fashioned financial advice and access. And all three of those acquisitions that you described are meeting that client in a different pain point. But they're all pain points and they're all important.

Speaker A: So when you're thinking about M, M and A, is it like you have. These are the three areas that we want to add to the firm like we want to next one making it up. We want to add tax preparation. Like are you then going out to find a firm that fits the bill or is it more so just you're selective with who you take on and you look for a new capability or just like an extreme alignment with how you're already serving clients and then that's what makes a uh, compelling deal for you.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean most of the time we're like getting feedback from our clients on where they need help. And that is usually the spark that starts the fire on. Okay, what if we added this? It's really, it's, I would say more based on like client feedback. We don't have estate planning attorneys inside, uh, of Americana per se. We don't have accountants that are signing people's tax returns inside of Americana. We get a lot of interesting opportunities from accounting firms and estate planning firms. And so uh, I like how we have this great referral network in place with those industries. And so I think we'd have to think long and hard about getting into those businesses per se.

Speaker A: Makes sense. I feel like there's probably a version of this story, your story, where you break away, you plot along, you're happy to not have a boss anymore, clients are happy. Maybe you get to like 4 or 5 billion in assets and you call it a win and just throw on coast mode. But clearly you didn't do that. You went the opposite direction. What do you think drove the ambition to keep build, to keep building towards something larger, like what's really sparking you and Motivating you today? Maybe differently or, or in a more defined way than it was when you first broke?

Speaker C: Yeah, I would say it's not just me, it's all the founders and I think all the employees. I, uh, share this and not to sound corny about it, I think everyone here wants to try and build something that his or her children would say. You know, my parent was one of the founders and employees of Americana Partners. So it's like, I think when you work at a bank, you definitely care about your brand that you're building, but this is a whole next level care about your brand. Like, we really care about this brand and we want it to outlast all of us.

Speaker A: Love that. For a successful wirehouse advisor or team that's sitting on a really nice practice, maybe similar in size or in the same realm that you had back where you were in that world, and they're thinking about maximizing their value, what advice would you offer? Like, do you think your story is an outlier or do you think it's doable by others if they follow certain advice or principles?

Speaker C: I would have a two word answer. Call us.

Speaker A: I'm kidding.

Speaker C: I, uh, have much longer answers. One of the things I really respected about a certain advisor, and if he's listening to this, he'll know exactly who he is. But I, uh, feel awkward saying his name. When I was contemplating going independent, I talked to an entrepreneur I really admire and I called him and I said, hey, we're thinking about doing this. And he said, look, I'm going to try and convince you to join our firm. And if you don't end up doing that, it's fine. I'll never. There'll be no hard feelings because we ended up launching our own firm. And I would never, like, faulty for the decision if you, like, wanted to do that with your team. And we thought long and hard. We almost joined this firm. It was in a very different geography. So we ended up launching our own firm. So I would say that if you want to do it yourself, we would respond the same way. We would give you a high five and wish you well and say you've made a great decision and we'd be pulling for you if you want to spend more time with your clients and less time in building the firm. We have the firm built and it's fantastic and it wasn't with blood, sweat and tears for seven years. And, uh, we can create a transaction that is economically the same or better as launching your own firm. And you have a voice and you Have a seat at the table, because we're still small enough to where you can help shape the direction of this firm. And we want your input. The difference is that instead of spending a third of your time interacting with financial advisors the way I do, you could spend 90% of your time interacting with your clients, um, instead of a third, and be part of a firm that I think has great national prospects. But I would never fault someone for doing it themselves, because that's what we did, and that would be hypocritical. But I really do think that this is a better path, even if you did it yourself or if you did it with someone like us. I think you're choosing two better options than what you currently have.

Speaker A: And it's a great perspective, and I think it's balanced and fair, too. I mean, there's plenty of people that I speak to where their passion is building. Like, they want to be the next Americana, right? That's what's going to spark them and get them out of bed. They want to do M and A, they want to be the CEO, uh, they want to really make their mark on the industry, and that's fine. But I do think there's probably more advisors out there that would love to be part of something, and they love equity, and they're passionate about different things than you were passionate about when you launched the firm. And the, uh, theory of a rising tide lifts all boats. It's like, you can do this yourself, or let's just build something bigger and better together and just getting comfortable with the theory of you'll own a smaller piece of the pie, but the pie is much more valuable than earning 100% or 80% of something that's less valuable and is going to take you in a different direction, personally. So, like, like I always say, like, we're not in the business of making judgments for people. It's up to them to define their goals, and then we'll help them execute on it. But I really like the perspective. I agree. It's not for everyone. Like, what you did is extremely hard. It's a risk. It's a big swing. But if you have the stomach for it, you want to take the swing. To me, there's no better time to, to, uh, pursue that path than today.

Speaker C: I agree. And, I mean, I could totally see a world over the next five years where some of these advisors that join us are bigger shareholders in this firm than me. And that would be great.

Speaker A: Interesting.

Speaker C: So I'm with you. Like, not only do I agree with what you're saying to me, I've never thought about how much of this company do I own. I thought about what is the percentage of the company that I own and what is it worth? I could care less if it was 25%, 12 and a half percent, 5%. You know what I care is what is that slice worth?

Speaker A: That's the fun way to look at it. Jason. This has been really fun. This new series. Build, grow and transact. This is proof of concept. But we're going to have to do a ton of these because the richness of detail and whenever we have breakaway guests, we're talking to them, um, in the beginning when they're still finding their feet, everything's new and fresh. They haven't thought about or executed on M, M and A and taking on capital partners. But I feel like this is the missing ingredient where it's a playbook for how others can be better themselves. Something to shoot towards. And I really appreciate your candor and transparency and I'm very serious. We'll have to do this again when you're at 25 billion and you have even more lessons and I'm sure battle scars to share.

Speaker C: No doubt. M, I'm for sure open to doing that. And maybe in the meantime, I see the pictures behind your head there. I'd love to come visit you in Park City and hang out and ski or play golf or.

Speaker A: You got it.

Speaker C: All right. Thanks for your time and thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Thanks, Jason.

Speaker B: As a financial financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibility seriously and are dedicated to your clients. But are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firm's or could a better option exist? Should I Stay or Should I Go? Is a book written with you in mind. It's a self guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively whether you're considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy@diamond-consultants.com the book.