The Wall Street Journal Features WE Family Office CEO Mel Lagomasino to Discuss Industry Growth

The Wall Street Journal recently feautred a handful of executives whose firms have been named among Barron’s Top 40 Registered Independent Advisors. WE Family Offices CEO and Managing Partner Mel Lagomasino was among the executives who discussed the pace of growth at the top independent advisory firms and what implications that industry growth has for their clients.

“We want to grow — if you don’t grow, you start going down — but we want to grow very, very thoughtfully,” Lagomasino tells The Wall Street Journal. “When we started the company in 2013, we had about $1.6 billion and close to 50 families. Today we have 72 families and we’re almost at $10 billion. That’s happened because we’ve been very focused on the type of family we can work with. We also look at where we can add value with these larger, more complex families. All three managing partners are involved with every family personally on a strategic basis. We’re focused on the quality of our service and the culture of our firm.”

When asked how WE’s growth affects services and pricing for clients, Lagomasino was quick to delineate what is scalable and what is not.

“Our relationship with and knowledge of a family, the customization we provide to them, isn’t scalable. What is scalable are things like technology and due diligence around investment opportunities,” says Lagomasino. “To the extent that our clients are large and we’re a family office, to the extent that we’re talking to an investment manager about an opportunity, the larger we are the more buying power and access we have. And we can translate that into lower fees and better terms for our clients.”

Subscribers to The Wall Street Journal can see the complete commentary about industry growth here.