Carson pulls $1.76B Wells Fargo team into its independent channel

Carson Group, the Omaha RIA, has added a New Hampshire team from Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network to its independent channel. The group manages $1.76 billion, according to InvestmentNews. ThinkAdvisor, which reported the move late last month, put the same catch at roughly $1.8 billion. Neither outlet named the advisors.

Carson's recent recruiting calendar has been full. Days before the New Hampshire report, the firm added Yari Capital, an Atlanta practice founded in 1995 by certified financial planner Kurt Mattson. Mattson had been registered with Northwestern Mutual since 1997. The practice manages $405 million. Olivia Payne, a CFP and director of financial planning, moved with him, along with a support staff of three, InvestmentNews reported.

Mattson's explanation reads like a recruiting brochure. He wanted an independent partner that would let his team "stay true to that philosophy while giving us access to best-in-class technology, advanced planning expertise and a community of advisors committed to putting clients first."

Both additions trace the same path, at different points. Mattson left a large insurer's career force; that was a first leap from a captive model. The New Hampshire team had already cleared that hurdle. Wells Fargo's Financial Network is the part of the franchise built for advisors who run their own books. Joining Carson was a second, more deliberate choice about where that independence should live.

Carson's pitch, as the recent arrivals describe it, is "keep your practice, trade the platform." That offer lands hardest with advisors who have already sampled independence once and want more of it.

The news lands after Carson crossed $50 billion in client assets, a figure ThinkAdvisor reported in late July. The New Hampshire team accounts for roughly 3.5 percent of that total. For a single office, that is a meaningful addition.

Carson's leadership ranks have been in motion too. The same week, an executive arrived from Osaic Wealth, according to PWD's tracking of personnel moves.

For Wells Fargo, the departure is a small fraction of a vast book, but it is a real inconvenience. FiNet exists to keep independence inside the family. Every time a nine-figure team leaves for an outside RIA, the trade-off the channel was built around loses a little of its pull.

FiNet still has plenty of purpose. Wells Fargo holds assets and relationships that dwarf any single Carson run, and its core employee channel is a separate fight. But the move does suggest the talent market no longer treats the independent arms of wirehouses as the last stop.

Mattson's departure from Northwestern Mutual and the New Hampshire team's departure from FiNet point the same direction. The recruiting battleground is moving from the captive advisor who dreams of leaving to the semi-independent advisor who has already left once and is deciding whether to leave again.

Neither report named the team. Carson's name was the one in the headline.