Wealth management industry titan Haig Ariyan of Arax Investment Partners on the private equity opportunity in wealth management and the intersection of wealth and alts

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

On today’s show, we dive into the world of wealth management with one of the industry’s leaders, Haig Ariyan.

Haig has seen it all. He went from someone who grew up in the advisory world as a wealth manager at Dean Witter Reynolds to ultimately becoming President and CEO of Alex Brown, America’s first investment banking firm. At Alex Brown, he oversaw 220 financial advisors and $70 billion in client assets. When Alex Brown sold to Raymond James Financial, Haig became the Head of Global Wealth Solutions. Prior to Alex Brown, Haig was Head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management in the Americas.

Haig is taking his expertise to build Arax Investment Partners. Together with RedBird Capital, an $8.6B private equity firm focused on financial services and sports and media, Arax is partnering with wealth and asset management firms and teams to build a differentiated platform that takes lessons learned and deep experience from running wealth management businesses.

Haig and Arax are well-capitalized and off to a flying start. They’ve already acquired their first few wealth businesses as well as a $1B AUM broker-dealer that will give them the foundation to build on as a hybrid platform.

Haig and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of wealth management and how alts are playing a big role in shaping the future of wealth.

We discussed: 

• What it means to be an advisor.
• Why Modern Portfolio Theory was such an important innovation for the industry.
• Why the hybrid brokerage and advisory model makes sense.
• How the wealth management space will continue to evolve.
• How alts can be a differentiator for advisor practices.
• How to build a platform that incentivizes advisor teams.

Thanks Haig for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wealth of wisdom.