Two of the largest teams J.P. Morgan inherited from First Republic have gone independent. Phil Scott and Jim Atwood launched Latigo Peak Partners on Monday, Oct. 19, with about $18.6 billion in assets under management and a staff of 48, according to the firm's announcement. AdvisorHub, which first reported the departures, said the teams resigned from J.P. Morgan Advisors on Friday.
The numbers are large even by breakaway standards. The founders' combined revenue climbed from $34 million to more than $130 million over the past six years, the firm said. Scott and Atwood are paying for the launch themselves and own the firm through a holding company, ASO Meridian Holdings. There is no private equity partner.
Latigo Peak is based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., with hubs in Bellevue, Wash., and Boston and a field office in Los Angeles. Client assets will sit at both Charles Schwab and BNY Pershing, which will also provide lending. Fusion Financial Partners, the firm started by former Hightower Advisors executives, advised on building the RIA.
The firm is aimed at ultra-high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs and business owners, with family-office services that include estate planning, gifting, philanthropy and education for the next generation. Investment management sits at the center of the pitch. "Our goal here is to build a firm geared principally towards investment performance and a distinctive client experience," Scott said in the release. Atwood framed the move around independence: "The value of independence is the ability to think independently."
Latigo also has a business beyond its own clients. Citing regulatory filings, AdvisorHub reported that the firm runs nine in-house strategies and is a separate-account manager on Schwab's Managed Account Marketplace, so other RIAs and family offices can hire it while keeping their own client relationships. The firm has not said how much of the $18.6 billion comes through that channel.
Scott and Atwood have run parallel careers for four decades. Both started at Merrill in 1984, according to AdvisorHub. Atwood moved to First Republic in Boston in 2018 with a 15-person team overseeing $4.5 billion. Scott followed in Bellevue in 2020 with 11 people and $2.7 billion. They became J.P. Morgan advisors in 2023, when the bank bought First Republic out of FDIC receivership.
People close to the teams told AdvisorHub that the founders had grown frustrated with technology and red tape at J.P. Morgan, and that leaving likely meant giving up a large amount of deferred compensation. J.P. Morgan did not immediately respond to AdvisorHub's request for comment.
The exit extends a long run of departures from the First Republic advisor force. Dozens of those advisors left in the first year after the deal, AdvisorHub has reported, and the J.P. Morgan Advisors brokerage unit now has about 600 advisors. For a unit that size, two teams producing more than $130 million in combined revenue is a meaningful loss.