WAGN/Merchant-backed RIA adds $230m Omaha duo

Elk River Wealth Management has added Jon Springer and David Carroll.

Elk River Wealth Management, a new RIA backed by a pair of ex-Envestnet executives, has added a $230m duo of advisors in Omaha, Neb.

The Denver and Phoenix-based firm has hired Jon Springer (pictured, left) and David Carroll (pictured, right) to lead a new office in Omaha. The two had most recently worked at Mutual of Omaha Bank, where they dispensed advice as registered representatives of LPL Financial.

Springer and Carroll work with an older client base of retirees, with an average client age in the sixties. The two advisors plan to develop some new business lines now that they are affiliated with an independent RIA, including premium financing and white-label investments and trusts division for banks.

‘We have so many irons in the fire as far as business opportunities that it’s a very complex situation that we’ve got going on, with how we’re building this business model of ours out,’ Springer said. ‘We don’t have the time to go out and choose who we’re going to use for compliance, marketing, our platform, our custodian, all of that. We turned to [Elk River] because they are the experts at determining who is the best in all those categories.’

Elk River is minority-owned by Wealth Advisor Growth Network (WAGN) — a new RIA consultancy that ex-Envestnet executives Jay Hummel and John Phoenix founded in September of 2019 — as well as Merchant Investment Management, a serial minority investor in RIAs and RIA-adjacent companies. Merchant has a minority stake in WAGN.

Helmed by former BOK Financial managing director Chris Freimuth, Elk River launched in March with a pair of teams that managed a combined $750m in assets at their old practices. The firm reported $393.2m in assets under management as of July 10 in a Form ADV it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Elk River is the first-ever RIA that WAGN has launched. Hummel — formerly Envestnet’s head of strategic initiatives — told Citywire that the consultancy’s decision to invest in Elk River may have helped win Springer and Carroll over.

‘I think they liked that John and I are partners in the business,’ Hummel said. ‘We weren’t just recruiting Jon and Dave to a firm and then we were going to disappear. We’re actually going to be rolling up our sleeves and in the trenches long after the deal is inked and we’re going to be their business partners.’