One Year Later with LourdMurray and Delphi Private Advisors

The past year hasn’t been easy for anyone. COVID has arguably “thrown a wrench” into many businesses plans, but even amid the chaos of the world, LourdMurray and Delphi Private Advisors (Delphi) have seen immense success after their merger and partnership with Hightower just over a year ago. We spoke with Managing Partner and COO of LourdMurray, Michael Lee, as well as Managing Partner and CIO of Delphi, Darren Reinig, and Director of Operations at Delphi, Gary Hirschfeld, to gain some insight on how their business has shaped up in the past year.

The strategic investment in LourdMurray and Delphi was unlike anything Hightower had embarked on in the past because it simultaneously involved a merger between the two independent firms and a capital investment from Hightower. There were a lot of moving parts when it came to the integration, Lee explains.

“Even though there were other advisory businesses joining Hightower around the same time we were, we felt like we were one of the first to participate in the new Hightower journey in this way with a new CEO and a new strategy surrounding acquisitions,” Lee says. “The whole integration process was extremely hands-on. Instead of Hightower just adding users to a new platform and doing training for a few months, they helped us migrate years’ worth of data and unwind and revisit decades worth of operating procedures.”

In the transaction, Delphi and LourdMurray were both able to retain their independent brands while bringing their teams together under one roof, operationally-speaking. Delphi and LourdMurray have seen many positives come from the merger and partnership with Hightower including economies of scale, national name recognition and numerous client benefits, all while maintaining the internal culture present pre-deal.

“We have been able to come together using Hightower’s scale, to develop some very low cost, highly-effective custom strategies with some prominent asset managers. I think that was a big client win,” Reinig says. “Before COVID hit, we had half a dozen merger opportunities from people we found, people who came to us, and people who came through Hightower. This was a huge opportunity for inorganic growth that wasn’t there before.”

Additionally, much of the “back office” work was taken off of Delphi and LourdMurray’s plates, so they were able to continue to grow their client experience, fully utilizing everything Hightower had to offer.

Hirschfeld explains partnering with Hightower has had a great impact on their client experience – something that was very strong before joining Hightower but even stronger now.

“Everything we obtained from the merger directly benefitted our clients as well as our firm,” Hirschfeld shares. “The technology we now use, and the overall integration with Hightower, from a cybersecurity standpoint, has really helped keep us all safe. We were able to do things with software integrations that we weren’t able to do as a smaller firm. All of that benefitted our clients by empowering us to spend less time in the back office and more time with them. I think that’s a major accomplishment.”

The firm has been so successful through the transaction that Reinig encourages other firms to act now in order to get ahead of the curve of the industry.

“Think about what the industry is going to look like in five or 10 years and ask yourself if you want to scale sooner where you can possibly be on the winning side of the equation, or if you want to wait it out and possibly have fewer options in front of you,” he says. “With all that Hightower has to offer, you’re getting scale without compromise. You’re assigned professional teams to help with IT and marketing – things that you may not have been able to invest in as a smaller firm – that will help you stand out in the industry. We have been able to present a localized and attractive image of our business to clients with a sophistication we never would have been able to get on our own. And whether it be our operations, our marketing or our technology, we have been able to stay true to who we’ve always been.”

To learn more about partnering with Hightower contact us.