Top Wealth Manager Number 343 | Back to Top Wealth Managers
As top-ranking wealth management firms—and their principals—go, Sheaff Brock’s David Gilreath is something of an iconoclast. Gilreath and firm co-founder Ron Brock were Morgan Stanley brokers who jumped ship in 2001."We decided we just wanted to manage money, so we jumped out of the plane and hoped the parachutes worked," Gilreath explains.
So what sets Sheaff Brock apart from the pack? "We have a very specific discipline, and we don’t vary from it," Gilreath says. "We’re not very interested in financial planning; we’ll provide a very general guidance, but not a ‘plan’ because they don’t work! Any financial plans that had any projections [last year] have been blown out of the water."
Gilreath also takes a pass on the holistic approach: "Do you really want to be a psychologist? Is that really my job?" he asks. "My job is getting a decent return without taking too much risk," even if determining that risk is "somewhat holistic."
2009 Top Wealth Managers Rankings by Average AUM Per Client (PDF)