$1.8bn Merchant-backed RIA Perigon adds Bay Area advisor

Mary Ballin has joined Perigon from $2.3bn Private Ocean, where she managed roughly $75m.

A Merchant-backed RIA in the San Francisco Bay Area has hired an expert in advising women.

Perigon Wealth Management, which manages around $1.8bn, has hired Mary Ballin to open a new office in the East Bay region. Ballin previously worked at a local rival Private Ocean, which manages $2.3bn.

Ballin was ready for a change after Private Ocean purchased her longtime employer, Mosaic Financial Partners, in 2018. She specializes in working with women going through major life transitions, such as divorce or the death of the spouse, and is hoping that the move to Perigon will give her an opportunity to broaden her practice.

‘What’s really nice about Perigon is the autonomy that they allow their advisors to grow a business that they’re comfortable with in a way they’re comfortable with, versus the enterprise operation where they have to fit into a certain slice,’ said Ballin, who managed roughly $75m while at Private Ocean. ‘I understand that there’s reasons for building businesses the way businesses are built, but for me, I wasn’t able to bring on a lot of people who came in my direction who didn’t fit that $2m minimum.’

Ballin plans on reviving one of her passion projects at Perigon, a series of discussion groups dubbed ‘Women’s Circles,’ which allow women to talk about financial planning topics such as estate planning and saving in a supportive space.

‘They’re about facilitating a conversation so that people can learn from each other,’ Ballin said. ‘I wasn’t able to do those over at Private Ocean and I really missed having those circles. A lot of women who participated regularly in those circles kept asking me why I wasn’t doing them any longer and when I would be starting those backup, and I really didn’t see that on the horizon.’

Perigon Wealth Management is minority-owned by Merchant Investment Management, a serial investor in RIAs. The firm has grown rapidly since it took the Merchant investment in January of 2019: it says it has more than doubled its assets under management in that span.