A father-son duo with a background in private banking and private equity has teamed up to start a new RIA in Chicago — and plans to keep it in the family for the foreseeable future.
Mark Resnik (pictured, right) and Steven Resnik (pictured, left) revealed Burling Wealth Partners to the world on Monday. The wealth manager officially began operations on September 12 and says it has already brought in $750m in assets under management, primarily from Mark Resnik’s historical book of business.
The junior Resnik, Steven, is Burling’s primary owner, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. He’s spent the last five years at The Edgewater Funds, a Chicago-based private equity firm with roughly $5bn in assets under management.
‘We’re a self-funded firm,’ Steven Resnik said. ‘We want to move at the pace that’s best for our clients and our employees, not at the pace dictated by outside capital. Having provided outside capital to a number of entrepreneurial businesses with 50-1000 employees, I got to experience great growth in those businesses, but again, for employees and for clients, it’s not necessarily the best way to scale and grow.’
‘Maybe in the future, there might be outside capital there, but right now, we’re focused on being an employee-owned business and scaling with the team and infrastructure that we have.’
The Resniks are two of five managing directors at the six-employee firm. Mark Resnik has extensive experience with what life is like at an institutionally-backed wealth business: He worked at asset and wealth manager Segall Bryant & Hamill (SBH) — now part of Canadian asset manager CI Financial’s US wealth management arm, Corient Private Wealth — through its 2013 transaction with private equity firm Thoma Bravo. After decamping SBH for Geneva Advisors, he was with Geneva through its 2017 sale to Canadian bank CIBC.
‘The environment that I found myself in at those two places was not, for me, fun,’ Mark Resnik said. ‘I’m lucky. I do what I do because I enjoy it. I’m fortunate to say I enjoy all of my client relationships. I was looking to do it in what I’ll call a smaller, more entrepreneurial environment.’
Instead of tucking into an existing RIA or using a platform services business like Dynasty Financial Partners, the Resniks have chosen to go it alone. RIA consultancy Fusion Financial Partners helped get the firm off the ground; Burling Wealth Partners chose to use Black Diamond, Wealthbox and eMoney as its primary tech providers on its own.
‘From my perspective, instead of relying on someone to put a bundle together that maybe works for a big group of people, we could interview the market,’ Steven Resnik said.
Charles Schwab and Fidelity are serving as Burling Wealth Partners’ custodians.