Corrected: Evercore Wealth expects bigger clients, deals

(Corrects Evercore Partners stake to 51 pct from 49 pct in paragraph 7)

By Joseph A. Giannone

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Evercore Wealth Management is finding that the bigger it gets, the more wealthy investors trust it.

Launched a year ago by Evercore Partners Inc (EVR.N) and run by former U.S. Trust Corp Chief Executive Jeff Maurer, Evercore Wealth recently reached the milestone of $1.5 billion of client assets under management.

For now, the target client has $5 million or more in investable assets, compared with the $10 million that many brokerage and wealth management firms demand. Yet as Maurer and 15 former U.S. Trust colleagues lead the expansion of their new firm, more of their former super-rich clients are showing interest in making the jump.

"It's harder to attract clients of that size as a start-up," Maurer told Reuters. "The larger accounts were a little reluctant when we started; some clients had more assets than we were managing."

Maurer spent more than 30 years at U.S. Trust, one of the world's largest wealth managers with $130 billion of client assets in 2000, the year it was acquired by discount brokerage Charles Schwab Corp SCHW.O.

After a brief stint at Lehman Brothers' wealth management arm, Maurer left in 2007 and began drawing up plans for a new wealth management and trust company. With U.S. Trust in the hands of mass-market Bank of America (BAC.N), Maurer said he had no qualms about recruiting his former colleagues.

In 2008, he secured Roger Altman's merger advisory boutique Evercore Partners as a 51 percent stakeholder in what is now Evercore Wealth Management. The firm planned to open its doors for business in October 2008, but the market's collapse postponed that to the following January.

Evercore now boasts 16 partners -- all former U.S. Trust executives to help build out a full-service wealth management business. About 90 percent of Evercore's $1.5 billion in assets comes from the partners' client relationships, Maurer said.

Wealth management is expected to provide steady income for Evercore Partners, a firm whose revenues rise and fall with merger activity. Evercore reports fourth-quarter results on Tuesday.

BIG GET BIGGER

Many accounts have from $10 million to $75 million or more. As the unit grows, and as the anxieties sparked by the financial crisis and the Madoff scandal fade, more very large accounts are expected to sign up.

Evercore predicts assets will more than triple to $5 billion within five years. Organic growth is key, but acquisitions also will play a role, Maurer said.

"We have a lot of capacity and we're looking for prospects. Just by doing that, we'll have a nice trajectory, but we can accelerate that by finding like-minded institutions or partners we can purchase," Maurer said. "We would buy financial firms even equal to our own size."

Evercore last week bought Morse, Williams & Co, an investment adviser with $190 million in assets. Maurer said he would like to buy more firms like Morse. There are lots of investment managers that do not provide trust or financial planning services that would make attractive targets, he said.

These investment managers "may not want to become part of giant firms and alter the way they do business," he said. "We think there are some gems out there. We'd like to find them."

Evercore also expects to attract investors worried about potential conflicts of interest associated with traditional brokers, a trend that has driven thousands of advisers and their clients to independent or boutique fee-only firms.

"Brokerage firms by their very nature create ethical considerations for financial advisers," said Maurer. "There is competition within these firms for providing advice. It's hard to be a holistic wealth manager in a brokerage firm."

(Reporting by Joseph A. Giannone. Editing by Robert MacMillan)