Creative Planning Buys HNW-Focused New York RIA

What You Need to Know

The addition of RIA The Doman Group gives Creative Planning its first physical presence in the New York City market.
TDG has a specialty service for professional athletes and entertainers.
TDG will keep its brand name alongside Creative Planning for a while before the New York RIA’s old name is dropped.

Overland Park, Kansas-based RIA Creative Planning acquired The Doman Group, an RIA based in New York City with $400 million in assets under management, Creative Planning said Tuesday.

TDG is focused exclusively on high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth households with executives and business owners, and it has a unique specialty service for professional athletes and entertainers, Creative Planning said.

TDG offers numerous services, including investment management, financial planning, tax preparation, family office services, alternative investment analysis and relocation services.

The transaction was completed earlier this year, Peter Mallouk, Creative Planning CEO, told ThinkAdvisor in a phone interview. He declined to say how much his firm paid for TDG.

The announcement was made one month after Creative Planning said it acquired Des Peres, Missouri-based Paradigm Financial Advisors, an RIA in the St. Louis market with more than $600 million in AUM.

TDG was started by Mark Doman, who serves as its managing director and developed the firm to reflect his “belief that holistic wealth management should extend far beyond investment advice,” Creative Planning said in announcing the transaction.

The Manhattan RIA has a staff of about seven people, four of them advisors, Mallouk said, adding Creative Planning will use both the TDG and Creative Planning branding “for a brief period of time” before dropping the TDG name.

Usually with Creative Planning’s RIA acquisitions, the purchased firm and its staff “come right over” and shift to the Creative Planning brand, he noted. But in this case, “I think given the sports/entertainment background” that TDG has, “we’re just going to keep them both going for a little [while] and then make the change” in branding to Creative Planning alone, he told ThinkAdvisor.

Prior to this acquisition, Creative Planning oversaw “well over $1 billion” in assets in New York City and had “about a dozen” advisors in New York’s five boroughs — about $2.5 billion to $3 billion in assets in the broader New York metro area, he added.

The TDG deal “gives us a physical presence in New York City we didn’t have before, it further expands our sports/ entertainment practice and it allows us to expand our talent in the region,” he said.