by Advisors Thomas Boyd and James Richard have left Snowden Lane Partners to launch their own registered investment advisor, Coral Reef Advisors, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., according to public filings.
The duo established Snowden Lane’s first location in Chicago when they joined the employee-partnership model in late 2019 from J.P. Morgan, where they managed $180 million at the time. The Boyd Richard Group is still listed on the Snowden Lane website, but contact information and links are no longer working. Boyd and Snowden Lane both declined to comment.
In the RIA’s Form ADV, Boyd and Richard are named as managing partners at Coral Reef, which is principally owned by Boyd.
Joined by one support staff member at the new firm, the two are also registered as insurance agents, and Boyd is now registered with broker/dealer Private Client Services. However, a Jan. 19 document indicates that both Boyd and Richard intended to offer brokerage services through Purshe Kaplan Sterling.
Coral Reef has selected Schwab for custody and primary brokerage purposes.
Citing the wide range of research, tools and services made available through Schwab Advisor Services, the firm states on Part 2 of its Form ADV: “We are not required to select the broker or dealer that charges the lowest transaction cost, even if that broker provides execution quality comparable to other brokers or dealers. Although we are not required to execute all trades through Schwab, we have determined that having Schwab execute most trades is consistent with our duty to seek ‘best execution’ of your trades.”
Target clients will include wealthy individuals, trusts, charitable organizations, and businesses. Fees, charged on a blended tier schedule, will run from 1.25% for clients with less than $2 million in investable assets to 0.7% for those with more than $10 million.
Snowden Lane is a dually registered wealth management platform offering W-2 employees, primarily recruited out of wirehouses and bank-based private wealth teams, back office support and equity ownership along with a certain degree of autonomy in terms of branding and practice management. After recruiting more than $1 billion in assets last year, Snowden Lane oversees more than $10 billion in total assets across 27 teams.
