Wells Fargo FiNet Adds $1B Advisor Team in Palm Beach

Wells Fargo's FiNet channel picked up another large team. Merritt Point Wealth Advisors, an Old Greenwich, Conn.-based practice affiliated with Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, added a seven-person group from Truist Wealth Management. The team oversees more than $1 billion in client assets, the firms said Wednesday.

The Palm Beach, Fla.-based advisors include partners Mark Elliot, Scott Friedman, Darren Dawson and John Kent, all executive managing directors. Vice President John Henry Kent, Operations Manager Kimberly Benko and Senior Associate Jose Mercy round out the group. According to BrokerCheck, the advisors had been with Truist for about a decade.

“The combination of strategic vision, collaborative culture, operational sophistication, and long-term investment in advisors and their teams made this the clear fit for us and for our clients,” said Friedman, executive managing director and partner.

The addition expands Merritt Point's presence in South Florida. The practice now has seven locations across Connecticut, New York, Texas and Florida. It joined FiNet in January 2019.

Wells Fargo has been adding advisors to both FiNet and its employee channel this year. A $1.7 billion team recently moved from RBC Capital Markets. The wirehouse is also preparing a fee-only RIA channel, expected to open at the end of this year. Erik Karanik, head of wealth and investment management independent solutions, said his team is gathering feedback from advisors at conferences and one-on-one meetings.

“We really want to make sure that we have something that is extremely viable when we go to external, so right now we’re making people aware of the platform,” Karanik said. “We are trying to show people that we’re going to have a platform that really gives the best of both worlds: a really good technology stack and the ability for them to integrate any third-party technology that they want, [as well as] all the services that Wells Fargo can offer for client solutions.”

Karanik said the meetings involve demonstrating Wells Fargo's web-based tools and technology, and adjusting the design based on feedback. The RIA channel already has Wells advisors lined up to join at the end of this year.

Wells Fargo, like other wirehouses, faces the steady shift of breakaways to the RIA sector. ISS Market Intelligence reported that the RIA channel had the most net advisor gains in 2025. Karanik said the RIA outreach has also boosted recruiting for FiNet and the employee channel.

“It’s definitely leading to the activity that we’re seeing around, just general overall recruiting, and whether recruiting into the employee channel or new affiliations, and knowing that we’ve embraced the optionality for the advisor to deliver the client experience that they want to and be able to support them through that evolution of their practice,” he said.

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