&Partners recruits $684M Fairbanks team from Commonwealth, its first Alaska practice

&Partners has planted its Alaska flag with SBS Retirement Consultants of Fairbanks, a $684 million practice that left Commonwealth, Financial Advisor Magazine first reported. Announced on LinkedIn, the move gives the Nashville- and St. Louis-based hybrid broker-dealer and RIA founded by David Kowach, John Alexander and Kristi Mitchem in 2023 its first advisory practice in Alaska and its 124th overall; the firm said it held $60 billion in assets as of July 31.

The Fairbanks team is led by partners Shawn Wiegand, Jordan Hendry, Ben Roth and Shannon Staiger, with Ethan Daniels joining as partner and director of planning; Laura Shaeffer, Calvon Boots and Rebecca Bentaas round out the client service team. Wiegand, Hendry and Staiger started in the industry in the 1990s and early 2000s at IDS Life Insurance and American Express Financial Advisors before Commonwealth, according to Financial Advisor Magazine.

PWD's records show the 123rd practice to join &Partners was a Wells Fargo alumni team, and the founders' Wells heritage has been the firm's natural calling card. The 124th is a Commonwealth team, arriving as LPL works through its acquisition of Commonwealth and projects 90% retention of Commonwealth's advisors. The independent channel has already seen nearly $5 billion of Commonwealth assets move to rival platforms in a single week this summer; SBS is part of that flow.

At that size, the Fairbanks practice is a geography play more than an AUM play: it gives &Partners a physical outpost and a referral node in a state where the firm had no previous presence, and it extends a recruiting map that started in Wells Fargo alumni circles into the Commonwealth diaspora. &Partners is not outbidding for billion-dollar books; it is being first to places where teams with decades-deep client relationships are deciding their next home.

The fair test comes with the 125th practice &Partners announces. Another legacy-platform team would show the pipeline is repeatable; another Alaska team would show the geography bet is already working. Fairbanks is now on the board either way.