Gadbois: Slow Going, New Plans, No Regrets
By RAJIV VYAS
Richard Gadbois says it’s been tough going since he left his cushy job at Merrill Lynch & Co. to become a partner at a startup money management firm catering to wealthy clients.
Vantis Equity Associates LLC, which Gadbois started with hedge fund manager Steve Holzman and Home Depot Inc. co-founder Kenneth Langone, now has $300 million under management,certainly a respectable amount. But it’s far short of the $1 billion March target Gadbois set last year.
There is a “lack of urgency for people to invest in this choppy market,” Gadbois said, “coming on the heels of Sept. 11, and then the Enron situation and Global Crossing.”
Still, Gadbois said, “by all measures we are doing better than anybody certainly Orange County has ever seen in terms of assets growth.”
Gadbois said he’s working on new plans to get the firm to its goals.
In September, Gad-bois left Merrill and joined Vantis to create a sales, customer relationship and marketing ma-chine, something similar to what he had done at Merrill. Gadbois was the highest producing broker for Merrill Lynch in OC and for most of the West Coast.
“It was a very, very hard decision to make,” said Gadbois, president of Los Angeles-based Vantis. “But it was clearly one of the best personal and professional decisions I have ever made,the best.”
Gadbois said he is moving to broaden the firm’s offerings and client base. He still has big numbers in his sights: he said he expects to bring another $200 million under management in the next couple of months and get to $1.5 billion by year’s end.
“I don’t think I will be happy until we are at more than $2 billion in assets,” Gadbois said. “I would feel that we have let Ken down if we were not above $2 billion sometime in the very near future. And I would have let myself and my family down.”
Vantis has dual headquarters, one in Los Angeles and the other in New York. Gadbois, who is in charge of sales, administration and client services, works out of a small Newport Beach office.
New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. are marketing Vantis’ money management services to some of their wealthy clients.
In the next couple of months, Vantis plans to launch an offshore fund for overseas investors.
Once the offshore entity is up and running, Vantis will start planning a retail mutual fund for non-taxable U.S. investors, Gadbois said. The mutual fund would be a retail offering with a minimum investment of $500,000.
Since its inception, Vantis has grown to a staff of 18 professionals. It has 117 accounts with an average size of $2.5 million.
