It was the growth of the Dynasty network that led to the decision to off-load the wealth management unit, according to company officials.
"We began discussing closing the internal RIA at [the] end of 2017 as we felt that it created confusion in [the] market that we were anything but a B2B firm," Cates said in an e-mail.
When Brown was recruited by Dynasty back in 2010, it was considered a coup for the fledgling firm, as he was part of a U.S. Trust team that managed $5.9 billion in assets. The departure led to a lawsuit by Bank of America, which had acquired U.S. Trust from Schwab Corp. in 2006, that was eventually settled.
"Now that we have nearly 50 firms on the platform, the Dynasty integrated services model is proven in the industry," Dynasty Chairman Todd Thomson said in a statement. "With no intention of expanding the internal RIA, Mike Brown as well as the Dynasty board believed that, in a consolidating industry, the private wealth management unit was best integrated with another RIA."