Debra Brennan Tagg, who leads Dallas-based BFS Advisory Group with $318 million in client assets, has left Osaic to join NewEdge Advisors, a New Orleans–based registered investment advisory platform with $28.5 billion in assets.
Brennan Tagg is joined by Associate Wealth Advisors Erin Neece and Hollis Stuckert, Portfolio Analyst Bradley Rouse and three firm and client support staff.
Brennan Tagg started her career in 1999 with FSC Securities, which was consolidated into Osaic late last year. Last April, the old Advisor Group, one of the largest networks of independent broker/dealers, announced it would merge its multi-brand network into a single entity with a new name. A few months later, the company rebranded as Osaic.
“At BFS Advisory Group, we constantly strive to improve our client experience so that our clients are confident in their financial decisions, and we want to bring that confidence to a wider group of people,” Brennan Tagg said in a statement. “It’s this approach that also attracts top advisors and service professionals to join our team. After a rigorous due diligence process, we chose NewEdge Advisors as our partner for the next phase of our firm so we can provide an enhanced investment platform with the technology and services that our clients and advisors need.”
Her team is the latest of several departures from Osaic in recent months. Last month, two advisory teams representing more than 30 advisors and $4 billion in client assets, decamped for LPL Financial. Lutherville, Md.-based Academy Financial and Berwyn, Pa.-based PFG Advisors were previously with Lincoln Financial’s wealth business, before Osaic acquired it earlier this year.
In an interview with WealthManagement.com, Osaic CEO Jamie Price said the firm expected some advisor attrition when launching the integration of the legacy b/ds, noting that there was “no surprise” on their attrition numbers and that they were “right on plan’ with what they expected going through the Osaic rebranding.
Price also said it was “self-evident” that recruiters would take advantage of the changes (which Osaic calls the ‘Journey to One’) to try to entice advisors to other firms and disputed that the firm’s private equity ownership was inspiring advisors’ departures.
“I think it’s more around the change inside the company,” he said. “And I think there’s a misnomer that a private equity firm comes in and they say, ‘well, you’re going to do ‘Journey to One,’ and it’s not how they work.”
NewEdge Advisors is part of the NewEdge Capital ecosystem that includes two RIAs and a broker/dealer. It represents the firm’s conventional independent channel, while NewEdge Wealth predominantly works with ultra-high-net-worth families. The RIA has added 24 other teams representing 56 new advisors, with another 18 integrated into existing teams.
