Exclusive: Stavis Wealth launches in-house investment platform

Deborah Stavis, whose prior RIA was one of CI Financial's first-ever acquisitions in 2020, has launched a new investing platform and hired a Franklin Templeton alum as CIO.

A Texas RIA has launched an in-house investment management platform that aims to address what it says is a lack of customization available to ultra-high net worth clients. 

Stavis Wealth Transfer Solutions, a $108m shop based in Houston, rolled out the platform on Thursday. It endeavors to provide clients an integrated system for accessing their portfolios, enhanced reporting and tailored investment strategies.

Stavis Wealth is led by chief executive Deborah Stavis, an industry veteran who launched the RIA in 2023.

Calling customization the ‘antithesis’ of scale, Stavis told Citywire that her RIA and the new platform are looking to close what she sees as a gap in the ability for growing firms to effectively serve their clients. Stavis said the platform will play a significant role in mitigating risk in client portfolios. 

‘We really believe right now that many clients are taking more risk than they’re aware of in their portfolios, and so we’ve built in strategies that would help,’ Stavis said. ‘Of course, the combination of a platform that fosters significant risk management along with all the other integrated processes we have, we think is going to achieve better outcomes.’ 

In conjunction with the platform rollout, the RIA also hired Samir Sinha as its inaugural chief investment officer. Sinha spent the last seven years at asset manager Franklin Templeton, where he held roles overseeing global portfolio construction and, most recently, as a senior analyst at Franklin Templeton Institute. 

Sinha (pictured below), who has a background in the family office space, told Citywire that Stavis’s integration of services under one roof appealed to him in taking the role, as did having true oversight over the active management of customer portfolios. He said active management is often overlooked yet is becoming more important now than it’s been at any point over the last two decades. 

‘I think our nimbleness is our strength,’ Sinha said. ‘That idea that if we see shifts in the market, if we see shifts in where we should be invested, we can make those decisions quickly and we can also make sure that they fit specifically to what our clients need relative to their current situation or current position.’ 

Stavis, who said she vetted around 400 resumes before landing on Sinha, emphasized that she and Sinha will be the primary decision-makers for the firm’s investment strategy moving forward and they will communicate directly with clients. She said the firm’s business model will benefit clients as opposed to larger RIAs that often have ‘several layers’ through which decisions need to be funneled. 

Prior to launching Stavis Wealth, Stavis co-founded Stavis & Cohen Financial (SCF) alongside Eddie Cohen in 2009. The RIA grew to manage roughly $570m in client assets before being acquired by Canadian asset management giant CI Financial in late 2020. The deal was one of the first US RIA acquisitions made by CI Financial, which has since turned its Corient Private Wealth subsidiary into one of the most acquisitive mega-RIAs in the industry. 

In 2023, Stavis departed CI to launch Stavis Wealth, which a CI spokesperson noted at the time did not align with the company’s goal of consolidating its RIA businesses into a single entity.

Stavis said she intends to add no more than 25 to 30 ultra-high net worth clients per year to her firm. She said maintaining that low volume will allow the company to maintain the proper bandwidth, even as it looks to add staff. 

The firm currently has five employees, including Stavis’ daughter, Chelsea, a co-founder of the firm who serves as its chief strategic officer. Stavis Wealth uses Fidelity as its custodian and has a minimum client account size of $5m.

Stavis added that technology has greatly enabled independent, boutique firms like hers to devise a different path forward for clients. She said she hopes her firm’s approach will allow Stavis Wealth to carve out a defined lane for itself in the industry. 

‘We expect attractive growth over the next several years,’ Stavis said. ‘People really enjoy being in the room with the people that are making the investment decisions, that are explaining what’s happening in the market and why we’re making the changes. ... We can just solve a lot more problems for clients in a very customized way.’