A new tenant has moved into the Shockoe Bottom Edgeworth Building. Photo by Michael Schwartz.
As it continues to grow under new management and private equity backing, a local finance and technology firm is relocating from a downtown tower to Shockoe Bottom.
Wealthcare Capital Management, which a few years back sparked some controversy when it patented a certain process used in financial planning, this week began settling into its new home in the Edgeworth Building at 2100 E. Cary St.
CEO Michael Ashker, who took the helm when Wealthcare was purchased by NewSpring Capital in late 2013, said the company began to look for a new office as its lease was coming due at 600 E. Main St., a state-owned building in which Wealthcare occupied about 8,000 square feet on the 12th floor.
“For the type of company we are, I was looking for something different,” Ashker said.
Wealthcare operates as part tech company and part finance firm. Its main offering is Financeware, a software program that it sells to other advisory firms and to individual financial advisers. It also has its own stable of affiliated and in-house advisers, an arm of the company that Ashker said it is looking to grow.
The company has about 40 employees in Richmond, made up largely of tech positions such as developers and those focused on designing Financeware’s user experience. Those are the types of jobs Ashker said he had in mind as Wealthcare looked for its new digs.
In Shockoe Bottom, the company has leased 12,000 square feet on the Edgeworth Building’s second floor, where its neighbors will include Hirschler Fleischer and Ernst & Young.
Michael Ashker
“It’s more fitting for the way we’re organized as a company now and how we want to represent ourselves,” Ashker said.
Wealthcare was founded in 1999 by David Loeper, who made waves in 2011 when he steered the company to patent the process of “goals-based” financial planning, which is the basis of Financeware and the company’s “crown jewel,” Ashker said. Some at the time argued that the patents appear to cover the same basic process that most financial planners use, and Wealthcare quickly began to protect its patented turf by filing a lawsuit that dragged in another local competitor.
Loeper eventually sold the bulk of the firm to NewSpring, a $1 billion Pennsylvania-based private equity firm. That deal was initiated by Ashker, a Detroit native who has run and worked in a number of tech and financial firms in the past, and Len Reinhart, a veteran of the financial world who was an early Wealthcare board member and then returned to the board after a brief hiatus.
NewSpring purchased a majority stake of Wealthcare, and some of the company’s management also took a stake. Ashker would not say exactly how much NewSpring brought to the table or how much it has given Wealthcare to use as it grows.
“Their pockets are plenty deep,” he said.
The new ownership has worked to grow the firm, including the number of advisers that use Financeware and the amount of assets the company’s own advisers manage.
It currently has about 30,000 advisers that use the software. Collectively they have about $700 billion in assets under administration, Ashker said. Its client list includes the likes of Wells Fargo and Scott & Stringfellow.
The firm also has its own advisers, including about 50 affiliated advisers around the country who pay to buy into the Wealthcare platform and about a dozen in-house employee advisers. They manage about $1.5 billion in client assets.
One of the company’s next steps, Ashker said, is to grow Wealthcare’s in-house advisory team. To start, he’s looking to open an advisory office in Richmond to serve as a test model for similar offices that could open elsewhere around the country.
“We’re looking for entrepreneurial advisers to be an anchor for us,”Ashker said of the planned Richmond office.
The company has also filed some new patents recently, and Ashker said it will continue to watch over its turf.
“As we develop technology, we’re going to continue to protect what we have,” he said.
A new tenant has moved into the Shockoe Bottom Edgeworth Building. Photo by Michael Schwartz.
As it continues to grow under new management and private equity backing, a local finance and technology firm is relocating from a downtown tower to Shockoe Bottom.
Wealthcare Capital Management, which a few years back sparked some controversy when it patented a certain process used in financial planning, this week began settling into its new home in the Edgeworth Building at 2100 E. Cary St.
CEO Michael Ashker, who took the helm when Wealthcare was purchased by NewSpring Capital in late 2013, said the company began to look for a new office as its lease was coming due at 600 E. Main St., a state-owned building in which Wealthcare occupied about 8,000 square feet on the 12th floor.
“For the type of company we are, I was looking for something different,” Ashker said.
Wealthcare operates as part tech company and part finance firm. Its main offering is Financeware, a software program that it sells to other advisory firms and to individual financial advisers. It also has its own stable of affiliated and in-house advisers, an arm of the company that Ashker said it is looking to grow.
The company has about 40 employees in Richmond, made up largely of tech positions such as developers and those focused on designing Financeware’s user experience. Those are the types of jobs Ashker said he had in mind as Wealthcare looked for its new digs.
In Shockoe Bottom, the company has leased 12,000 square feet on the Edgeworth Building’s second floor, where its neighbors will include Hirschler Fleischer and Ernst & Young.
Michael Ashker
“It’s more fitting for the way we’re organized as a company now and how we want to represent ourselves,” Ashker said.
Wealthcare was founded in 1999 by David Loeper, who made waves in 2011 when he steered the company to patent the process of “goals-based” financial planning, which is the basis of Financeware and the company’s “crown jewel,” Ashker said. Some at the time argued that the patents appear to cover the same basic process that most financial planners use, and Wealthcare quickly began to protect its patented turf by filing a lawsuit that dragged in another local competitor.
Loeper eventually sold the bulk of the firm to NewSpring, a $1 billion Pennsylvania-based private equity firm. That deal was initiated by Ashker, a Detroit native who has run and worked in a number of tech and financial firms in the past, and Len Reinhart, a veteran of the financial world who was an early Wealthcare board member and then returned to the board after a brief hiatus.
NewSpring purchased a majority stake of Wealthcare, and some of the company’s management also took a stake. Ashker would not say exactly how much NewSpring brought to the table or how much it has given Wealthcare to use as it grows.
“Their pockets are plenty deep,” he said.
The new ownership has worked to grow the firm, including the number of advisers that use Financeware and the amount of assets the company’s own advisers manage.
It currently has about 30,000 advisers that use the software. Collectively they have about $700 billion in assets under administration, Ashker said. Its client list includes the likes of Wells Fargo and Scott & Stringfellow.
The firm also has its own advisers, including about 50 affiliated advisers around the country who pay to buy into the Wealthcare platform and about a dozen in-house employee advisers. They manage about $1.5 billion in client assets.
One of the company’s next steps, Ashker said, is to grow Wealthcare’s in-house advisory team. To start, he’s looking to open an advisory office in Richmond to serve as a test model for similar offices that could open elsewhere around the country.
“We’re looking for entrepreneurial advisers to be an anchor for us,”Ashker said of the planned Richmond office.
The company has also filed some new patents recently, and Ashker said it will continue to watch over its turf.
“As we develop technology, we’re going to continue to protect what we have,” he said.