The Kansas City area already is playing a key role in the growth strategy for Clayton, Missouri-based Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC, and that role is only going to grow over time now that Moneta established its trust company here.
Founded in 1869, Moneta didn’t officially expand into the Kansas City area until 2020, setting up an office at 1900 Shawnee Mission Parkway in Mission Woods. It was an effort led by former Moneta CEO Gene Dieterich, a 39-year financial services veteran who is a partner and member of the company’s board of directors. Earlier this month, the company doubled down on the Kansas City area, forming its own trust company and basing it here.
In September, soon after Moneta's Kansas City office opened, the fee-only registered investment adviser had $23.7 billion in assets under management, including $500 million in the metro area.
Dieterich said Moneta previously had worked with other trust companies. There was enough interest from clients for the company to start its own charter.
“Obviously there’s just this huge generational transition of wealth from the baby boomer generation to their children and grandchildren, and so some of this is an anticipation of future needs," he said. "We’re already listed as a successor trustee in a lot of documents, but the passing of those clients has not happened yet. So we know that there’s significant chunks of assets coming our way in the future and we want to be ready for that when it happens.”
Moneta explored multiple states as locations for the new trust company but ultimately settled on Kansas. For one, the Kansas State Banking Commission was accommodating and easier to work with than some other states. And the location is close to Midwest Trust Company, which is providing back office support for the fledgling operation.
“We already have some people there, and Midwest Trust is providing some of the staffing,” Dieterich said. “But we will also have to hire people as we transition assets from our existing outsourced trust company partners to Moneta Trust. So I would say it will be kind of a gradual process to grow the assets and then the related staffing of Moneta Trust.”
Dieterich feels comfortable in the Kansas City area, since he’s originally from here. He got his start in financial services at KPMG LLP in Kansas City and later spent three years leading the Overland Park office of A.G. Edwards. His son Steven works out of Moneta’s Mission Woods office.
“We’ve already got a nice little presence and a great group over there, and the trust company is just trying to improve on something we’ve already been doing by having our own charter. But the big thing for everybody at Moneta is just taking great care of our clients and accommodating whatever needs they have. Our clients typically would prefer a trust company that has a relationship to their existing advisory teams.”
This article originally appeared on Business Journal.
