$4.8bn hybrid adds ex-Merrill advisor in South Florida

April 2020

By Ian Wenik

Snowden Lane Partners has hired Danny Rodriguez away from the wirehouse, making him the seventh advisor in their Coral Gables office.

Hybrid RIA Snowden Lane Partners has added a veteran Merrill Lynch advisor to its fledgling South Florida office.The $4.8bn firm has hired Daniel Rodriguez (pictured) to serve as the seventh advisor in its Coral Gables location. Rodriguez, who has worked in the brokerage industry for 32 years, managed roughly $84m in client assets while at the wirehouse.Rodriguez specializes in managing money for offshore clients, which he says comprises around 85% of his book of business. He had been at Merrill Lynch for seven years and told Citywire that he was looking to exit so he could have more freedom making custom investment portfolios for his clients.

‘I have very high net worth individuals and it got to the point where custom-making their portfolios independently without any proprietary setup was the perfect situation for my clients,’ Rodriguez said.

Before joining Merrill Lynch in 2013, Rodriguez spent a decade at Wells Fargo and nine years at Prudential.

Snowden Lane Partners opened the Coral Gables office roughly 10 months ago, in June of 2019. The office launched with a quartet of ex-Merrill brokers that month and subsequently expanded in September of that year with a pair of former Credit Suisse advisors who specialized in managing money for ultra-high net individuals.

Greg Franks, Snowden Lane’s president, said that Snowden Lane is actively recruiting more advisors.

‘In a perfect world, we’d like to keep expanding in the locations we are at,’ said Franks, a former Merrill Lynch executive. ‘However, if the opportunity is significant enough, we will absolutely open new offices. We’re in a growth mode… we’re not going to grow at any cost, but if we can have smart, continuous growth, it positions us really, really well.’

Snowden Lane is backed by Estancia Capital Management, a private equity firm which invests in middle-market wealth and asset management companies.