Charlie Viola leads buyout at Pitcher Partners

High-profile Pitcher Partners adviser Charlie Viola is leading a buyout of the firm’s ultra and high net worth business units, following a dealmaking spree in the local private wealth sector.

Charlie Viola, a financial adviser with Pitcher Partners, is leading a management buyout. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

High-profile Pitcher Partners financial adviser Charlie Viola is leading a buyout of the firm’s ultra and high net worth business units, in a move that will see about $2.4bn in funds transition to a new entity.

Mr Viola, who placed fourth on last year’s Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisers list, was pivotal in setting up the Pitcher Partners wealth division in 2003. The management buyout essentially splits Pitcher Partners’ ultra and high net worth private wealth unit from its mass affluent segment, which remains with the parent entity. Pitcher Partners has more than $3.6bn in client funds under management and will oversee $1.2bn after the separation.

Mr Viola confirmed the buyout after fielding questions from The Australian.

The separation from Pitcher Partners follows a period of immense change in the local private wealth sector including a deal making spree largely led by international suitors in the past five years. Focus Financial Partners purchased a strategic stake in Escala, EFG International became a majority shareholder in Shaw and Partners and Crestone was acquired by a unit of the Princely family of Liechtenstein, LGT International. In 2022, Koda Capital sold a stake to the Milstein family-backed advisory and capital firm Emigrant Partners.

Customers were informed about the new firm, Viola Private Wealth, late on Thursday night.

“It’s just time for us to go and build a specific business around high net worth and wanting to grow that and bring in really good advisers … to help us do that, grow that business over time,” Mr Viola said in an interview. “This is, you know, genuinely no acrimony, genuinely very friendly.”

Mr Viola becomes executive chair of the new firm, while Sean Ward goes across as chief executive and Andrew Levi as operating boss. Former Test cricketer and financial adviser Peter Nevill also joins and with other support staff takes the Viola team to about 11.

From left: Andrew Levi, Charlie Viola and Sean Ward.

About 40 per cent of Viola’s customers are shared with Pitcher Partners through accounting, tax planning or other services at the latter, and the firms will continue to be linked via transitional and ongoing service arrangements. Pitcher Partners will initially provide office space, technology and other services to Viola, while the latter will provide Pitcher Partners with administration and governance services.

Both sides of the transaction tried to smooth over any risks or concerns about the transition.

Pitcher’s managing partner Adam Irwin said he didn’t expect any disruptions for customers of either side.

“Charlie is an amazing operator and he has wanted to shape his own destiny for some time … it is also an opportunity for our wealth management team to refocus our services,” he added.

Pitcher Partners Sydney Private Wealth, as it will be known, will be led by existing partners Martin Fowler and Jordan Kennedy and principal Andrew Wilson. Mr Viola outlined that he was aiming to have about 15 advisers at the new private wealth firm in about three years

“We think we’ve got the infrastructure and the systems to continue to invest,” he said. “We’ve probably cracked the nut in terms of the right model, the right service ethic, the right systems.”

The management buyout – which will be funded by Mr Viola and those transitioning across – will likely stir market debate about whether a private wealth business can operate within the confines of a large audit and accounting firm like Pitcher Partners or a big financial institution. The major banks have largely retreated from the space already.

Westpac, for example, offloaded the bulk of its private wealth business to Viridian Advisory about five years ago and ANZ divested its business as part of a broader transaction to IOOF, now Insignia.

Commonwealth Bank is weighing a sale of its ultra-high net wealth division, as part of a review of the business, while National Australia Bank is the only large lender to have recommitted to the private wealth sector via its ownership of JBWere.

Pitcher Partners’ website notes Mr Viola led the implementation of the firm’s wealth division with “a small portfolio, a phone book and a philosophy”.

Capgemini’s latest global wealth report put India and Australia among the best performers in the Asia Pacific ranked on the growth of wealth for high net worth individuals and on the increase in the number of wealthy individuals.