Abbot Downing is expanding into Atlanta to help meet the needs of the growing number of ultra-high-net-worth clients here who seek to understand and preserve their wealth and historical legacies for future generations. Abbot Downing—with its 45-year history serving ultra-high-net-worth individuals, families and foundations—is part of Wells Fargo’s Wealth and Investment Management Group, a leading provider of management services, with $1.9 trillion in client assets as of Dec. 31, 2016.
The Atlanta team will be led by David Edmiston, Abbot Downing managing director, a 28-year veteran of Wells Fargo. Edmiston has deep experience leading wealth management teams who provide investment management, private banking, trust, estate, credit, and integrated wealth management services through Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as well as insurance and brokerage services through Wells Fargo Advisors. Most recently, Edmiston was regional managing director in Georgia for Wells Fargo Private Bank.
“With the current merger and acquisition activity and wealth transfer needs, Abbot Downing is excited to work with clients to address these needs in the Atlanta metro area,” said Jack Ginter, senior managing director for Abbot Downing. “Our clients want an integrated offering of services combined with a high-touch client service experience. In our experience, successful individuals and families are looking for wealth managers who can go beyond the numbers to help them use their wealth to positively impact their families and their communities.”
Abbot Downing is positioned to assist clients of unique wealth in numerous ways:
- Outsourced Chief Investment Officer- With Wells Fargo Investment Institute, Abbot Downing conducts exhaustive investment research to provide sophisticated asset management solutions not widely available to individual investors, including Foundations and Endowments.
- Planning – Bringing both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of wealth into harmony through the Abbot Downing Clarity process helps build a framework for long-term planning strategies.
- Family History and Business Services – The firm’s team of PhD level historians provide clients with archives of historical documents charting the geographic, social, economic, political, religious and cultural circumstances that shaped a family’s businesses, lives and reputation. By working with families to understand their history, Abbot Downing helps them integrate their core values into wealth planning.
- Family Dynamics and Education - The Abbot Downing family dynamics team works with clients to develop strategies for communication, education and philanthropic giving for the people and communities they care about most.
- Private Banking – Abbot Downing credit products include customized leverage to help meet estate, financial and investment planning objectives; personal lines of credit; specialized financing for aircraft, yachts and alternative investments; and investment finance for commercial real estate, LLCs and LLPs.
- Family Office Services - Whether family offices need treasury management, pre-IPO services, private banking or insurance solutions, Abbot Downing helps them access these services across Wells Fargo.
- M&A activity- Abbot Downing partners with Wells Fargo Securities to provide access to private equity firms and qualified buyers, helping business owners sell all or part of their business assets, and guiding them through the sale of the business. Sudden wealth events often have complex needs beyond the scope of investment management.
“Our clients best interest is at the heart of everything we do,” said Edmiston. “Through our team-based approach, we leverage resources from Abbot Downing and Wells Fargo to address the financial, social and personal dimensions of wealth through custom solutions tailored to each individual, family and institution we serve.”