Diversify Advisor Network, a $7 billion Utah-based wealth management firm comprised of two corporate RIAs and an asset management firm focused on alternative investments, has expanded the offerings available to its growing advisor ecosystem Investment management capabilities.
Late last year, Diversify launched a new organizational model and brand to expand its affiliation options. Diversify, formerly DFPG Investments (retained by its subsidiary broker/dealer), now includes an affiliated RIA platform called Diversify Advisory Services, as well as a new W-2 model called Diversify Wealth Management.
DFPG has assets of approximately $2.8 billion, while DAS and DWM have assets of $2.2 billion and $2.1 billion respectively.
Chief Investment Officer David Wrigley, who joined Diversify in 2022 to lead the effort, said the expansion of the investment platform began a year ago, when the company began bringing traditional investments in-house.
“Part of it is an internal, institutional-quality trading platform where you implement, monitor, trade and make ongoing changes to internally managed strategies,” Wrigley said. “Part of this also includes expanding the team to ensure we cover all the bases relevant to the strategies we are considering, while also helping advisors with questions clients may have. We are even happy to call or meet with these directly if necessary client.
“It’s really about putting all the resources in place that we need to say we are an in-house, institutional-quality investment platform that is truly tailored to each advisor.”
The expanded platform includes more than a dozen fee-based alternative strategies, including structured notes, interval funds and private placements. It offers a comparable number of globally diversified passive strategies and five in-house separately managed accounts – three equity strategies and two fixed income strategies. There are also 23 third-party SMAs for internal trading, as well as 9 unified management accounts established according to various SMAs.
“We think we’ve found the sweet spot,” Wrigley said. “We don’t want a supermarket-type approach where there are a hundred or more strategies and seven large-cap stocks and advisors try to pick the best strategies. However, we want it to be robust, diverse and flexible enough so that Advisors can use it according to their own practice.”
Wrigley noted that retained advisors and affiliated advisors are not required to use strategies and models developed by the Diversify investment team; the technology platform can support other options and service providers.
“That’s the nature of this industry,” he said. “We want to provide that flexibility to advisors to be able to manage the practice as they see fit.”
The investment team has grown to nine people, an increase of 125% over the past 12 months. It now includes three traders, a portfolio management team, compliance support staff and a data analyst, with other job postings to come.
Additional additions to both RIAs are expected in the coming months.
“In the next 60 days, there will be several groups joining diversified wealth management,” Wrigley said. “When it comes to diversity advisory services, this is an ongoing process. We are constantly working to find the right candidates and maintain a full pipeline of advisors who we believe are of the highest quality across the industry and nationally, and from These advisors will be complementary to their practices from a geographic perspective or niche service or operational approach.”
As a counterpoint to private equity ownership in the RIA space, both Wrigley and CEO Ryan Smith expressed confidence that Diversify Advisor Network is well-capitalized and can provide advisors with a destination that won’t change ownership anytime soon.
