Two J.P. Morgan Advisors teams leave with $18.6bn to found Latigo Peak Partners, without private equity

On 19 October 2026, Phil Scott and Jim Atwood announced the launch of Latigo Peak Partners, an independent registered investment adviser (RIA) for ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families. The two ran two of the largest practices at J.P. Morgan Advisors, Scott’s in Bellevue, Washington and Atwood’s in Boston. AdvisorHub reports that the teams left the bank the previous Friday.

According to the firm’s own announcement, the teams oversaw a combined $18.6 billion in client assets and generated more than $130 million in revenue, up from $34 million six years earlier. These figures come from Latigo Peak itself and have not been published by J.P. Morgan, which had not commented when AdvisorHub reported the move.

The firm

Latigo Peak is based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with operating hubs in Bellevue and Boston and a field office in Los Angeles. It opens with 48 staff. Charles Schwab and BNY’s Pershing will provide custody and lending, and the recruiting firm Fusion Financial Partners advised on the launch, as reported by both AdvisorHub and InvestmentNews.

Investment management centres on public equities and fundamental research. Around it, the firm offers services usually associated with multi-family offices: estate and wealth planning, gifting, philanthropic strategy and education for clients’ heirs. AdvisorHub adds that, according to regulatory filings, Latigo runs nine in-house strategies and sits on Schwab’s managed account platform, so outside RIAs and family offices can hire it as a sub-adviser. The release does not say how much of the $18.6 billion is sub-advised.

Both founders began at Merrill Lynch in 1984, moved to First Republic, and became J.P. Morgan advisers when the bank bought First Republic’s assets out of receivership in 2023. AdvisorHub notes that dozens of former First Republic brokers left J.P. Morgan in the year after that acquisition.

No outside capital

The founders own the firm through a holding company, ASO Meridian Holdings, and are funding it themselves. Atwood told Bloomberg that they had turned down private equity partners because of the exit horizon that comes with such capital, which he put at five or six years.

That choice runs against the market. InvestmentNews, citing Fidelity Investments data, reports that private equity backed 88% of RIA deals in 2025, and that PE-backed or PE-owned buyers accounted for 89% of RIA transactions in the first half of 2026.

AdvisorHub’s sources said the founders had been frustrated by technology and bureaucracy at the bank, and that they were likely to forfeit substantial deferred compensation. Those accounts are unattributed and the firm has not confirmed them.

What it means for family offices

Families with assets at a large bank often deal with one team there, and that team can leave with little notice. Families should know in advance what a departure would mean for custody, lending lines and concentrated positions held on the bank’s platform. The self-funded structure also matters to clients: a firm without a private equity owner has no built-in sale date, though the founders’ ages (Atwood is 65 and Scott 71, per AdvisorHub) make the succession plan inside the firm the question to ask. Single family offices that already outsource public equities have a new sub-advisory option to weigh, although public information on its track record is still limited.

Sources: AdvisorHub (19 October 2026); InvestmentNews (19 October 2026); Bloomberg (19 October 2026).