Sowell builds an in-house tax team for $5 million households

Sowell Management of North Little Rock, an Arkansas RIA with $6.9 billion in client assets, is treating estate and tax planning as a product line rather than a per-advisor accessory. Its new Advanced Planning Group, an integrated estate, tax and advanced planning team led by Carrie Quraishi as director of advanced planning and JR Quraishi as director of tax planning, will serve advisors across the firm and Cache River Private Wealth, the high-net-worth division Sowell launched in April for households with $5 million or more in net worth.

The press release casts the group's work as wealth transfer, family stewardship, business succession, tax planning and long-term legacy objectives, built for advisors serving wealthy individuals, families and small business owners. Bill Sowell, the founder and chief strategy officer, says accumulating wealth pushes client needs beyond traditional investment management. Carrie Quraishi said the team will expand Sowell's ability to support clients through business sales, liquidity events, succession planning and multi-generational wealth transfer, and pointed to rising demand for family-office-type services among wealthy clients. That demand is why Sowell attached the new group to a division only months old.

PWD has tracked this play before: Grimes, a $7 billion RIA backed by Rise Growth, purchased a Massachusetts tax shop to bring tax preparation inside its own walls. That deal and Sowell's launch are two answers to the same question, extending a familiar argument: the next battleground is owning the advanced planning stack, and firms that build in-house tax and estate depth will keep the $5 million-plus households. One firm is buying a book and a team; the other is constructing the capability from scratch. Both are chasing the same household — the $5 million-plus client whose planning needs have outgrown the portfolio.

The build-versus-buy trade has a clear shape. An acquisition delivers immediate tax expertise and a client roster, but it also imports the seller's culture and legacy systems. Sowell's route is slower and quieter, which probably suits a firm betting on organic growth: an integrated planning team, embedded in the same firm as the custody and reporting relationship, makes moving to another RIA feel like starting over. The cost is time. Clients in that bracket often arrive with an existing CPA and estate attorney, so an in-house team must prove it adds value over those outside relationships before retention benefits show up. The bet is that the loyalty an in-house team earns outlasts the patience its construction requires. If the Advanced Planning Group can hold the firm's wealthiest households through the ramp, Sowell's April launch of Cache River will have been the foundation for an edge in keeping them — and the first proof will be whether a $5 million household with an existing CPA decides to stay.