Chicago RIA Vivaldi Capital Management has added a high net worth specialist advisor from UBS.
The $2.8bn firm has appointed Chicago-based Frank Pellicori — who had been with UBS since 2011 — as a wealth advisor and partner in the business. Pellicori (pictured) had previously served as a senior vice president at Desai, Pellicori, Stirling, a three-advisor UBS team which is understood have managed roughly $2bn in assets for wealthy families.
Pellicori, who had a longstanding relationship with Vivaldi Capital Management president Mike Peck, told Citywire that the RIA’s technology and access to different types of alternatives, along with the freedom of the independent advisory model, won him over.
‘I was always quite jealous that we didn’t really have those things at UBS,’ Pellicori said. ‘It always kind of piqued my interest as a way of being at the cutting edge of innovation within financial services. The ultimate decision was really driven by that degree of independence, both personally as well as professionally.’
At UBS, Pellicori worked with a broad base of clients which ranged from families with $10m-$15m in assets to multibillion dollar family offices. He told Citywire he specialized in working with families that had roughly $50m-$100m in assets but did not have a formal family office, ‘where I can step in and the firm can step in as that virtual family office for them’.
With Pellicori coming over solo, Vivaldi Capital Management plans to build a new team around him.
‘For us, I think it really stood out that we had the ability to handle the planning for the high-end client and the family office client, to be able to give advice, whether it’s on foundations or whether it’s on advanced tax planning or other topics,’ Peck said. ‘But then on the other side to it, to have the sophisticated investment options that we do, that range from equities to, more prominently, really unique co-investments, private equity, real estate, direct deals.’
Vivaldi Capital Management does a lot of its investment work in-house and has its own team of manager due diligence and investment research professionals, which sat at nine people as of early 2020.
‘There’s very few RIAs that have the capabilities we do to source direct and unique alternative investments,’ Peck said.