NewEdge Wealth Adds Florida Atlantic Securities CEO to Coral Gables Team

NewEdge Wealth’s addition of W. Trevor Beaney gives the firm a senior leader with experience running a Miami-based advisory practice overseeing more than $1 billion in client assets. Beaney, chief executive of Florida Atlantic Securities Corp., is joining NewEdge as a partner at its Coral Gables office, alongside client service associate Kristie Feliz Smith.

The hire adds local leadership and an established client practice as NewEdge builds its presence in South Florida. Beaney spent nearly a decade developing Florida Atlantic Securities’ advisory business before becoming its chief executive in 2019. He joined the firm in 2012 as a vice president, following an earlier role at Morgan Stanley.

At Morgan Stanley, Beaney managed portfolios for ultra-high-net-worth and institutional clients with more than $650 million in investment assets. His experience spans equity and fixed-income portfolios for wealthy families and for-profit and nonprofit organizations, according to Rob Sechan, founder and managing partner of NewEdge Capital Group, NewEdge Wealth’s parent company.

Sechan said Beaney’s team brings experience that fits the strategies NewEdge provides to South Florida clients. Beaney, in turn, said the firm’s investment solutions and technology can help serve clients with complex financial needs and support the team’s next phase of growth. The comments point to the practical appeal of a larger platform: advisors can draw on broader resources while continuing to serve the families, individuals and institutions they bring to the firm.

South Florida is part of a wider expansion

NewEdge’s Coral Gables hire sits within a multi-state growth effort that has recently taken the firm into Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Ohio and Minnesota. The firm has added advisor teams with regional relationships and substantial client businesses as it extends its reach beyond its existing offices. Its moves into Minnesota and Ohio were part of that wider expansion, as previous coverage of the firm’s market entries described.

NewEdge now has more than 75 ultra-high-net-worth advisors across 22 offices, from New York and Chicago to Miami and San Francisco. South Florida has drawn particular attention: earlier this year, the firm added a high-net-worth team from Merrill Lynch as it worked to expand its Florida presence. That move, covered in a report on NewEdge’s Florida expansion, gives the Beaney hire a regional context. Coral Gables is part of a repeated effort to build local scale, rather than an isolated addition to the firm’s office list.

For NewEdge, recruiting an established team offers a way to grow by bringing in experienced advisors and their client relationships. The firm’s recent activity in Atlanta included two senior hires, a pattern that suggests people moves are a central part of its expansion approach. Coverage of the Atlanta additions likewise focused on senior recruitment. These hires can broaden a firm’s reach without requiring it to build every local practice from the ground up.

A platform change for an established practice

Florida Atlantic Securities was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Miami. It operates a brokerage platform as well as an investment management division, FASC-IM, which builds individually tailored portfolios for high-net-worth individuals, families and institutions. Beaney’s move therefore brings experience from a firm with both brokerage and portfolio-management operations into NewEdge’s independent advisory platform.

Moves of this kind reflect a wider shift in wealth management: experienced advisors and firm leaders have been joining larger independent firms from wirehouse and regional broker-dealer settings. A larger platform may offer investment resources, technology and operational support, while an incoming team brings its knowledge of local clients and an existing way of serving them. The fit depends on whether those resources support the team’s work and clients’ needs over time.

The available details don’t specify how Florida Atlantic Securities’ existing client relationships will be handled, or what arrangements will apply to the team’s portfolio work after the transition. Those are meaningful questions for clients assessing continuity in service, investment management and day-to-day support. For NewEdge, the hire adds a leader with a substantial practice and Miami experience; its broader test will be how effectively it integrates new teams while maintaining service across an expanding network of offices.