Sanctuary Wealth Scores 'Biggest Win to Date' in Recruiting $1.5B Merrill Team

The four Quorum advisors were "approached by every significant player in the wealth management spectrum including RIAs, family offices and private banks," according to Vince Fertitta, president of wealth management at Sanctuary Wealth.

"The intellectual capital and wealth of experience they bring to our network will be invaluable, while the resources we can provide will help them continue the outstanding growth trajectory they've already begun," he said.

Quorum "realized that with the level of service we deliver and the out-of-the-box thinking that our clients expect, partnered independence with Sanctuary Wealth was really the only viable option for us," according to Barry.

"Early in our internal discussions we considered signing with another employee model, but realized that would have just been a lateral, or even a downward step," Barry explained. "It became very obvious that the right decision was not only to go independent, but to do it alongside Sanctuary. We can look every client in the eye and say, 'we think it's going to be a better place for you, and for us.'"

Another advantage is that Quorum, as an independent firm, now has "access to Sanctuary's completely open architecture, which means using the best that Wall Street can offer to find the most competitive, most compelling solutions for our clients," according to Milligan. "We can spend all of our time focused on our clients' interests and nothing else," he said in the announcement.

Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, where he met and teamed up with Barry, Milligan had been a corporate attorney and a partner in a litigation consulting firm. The pair found that their approaches were highly complementary, and they were more efficient as a team than either was alone, according to Sanctuary.

So far in 2021, Sanctuary Wealth has welcomed eight advisor teams with $2.8 billion in combined assets, it said. The Sanctuary Wealth network now includes nearly 200 advisors at 49 partner firms across 19 states with over $16 billion in assets under advisement.