DALLAS — Editor's note: This article was originally published in the Dallas Business Journal here.
Almost five years after entering the Dallas-Fort Worth market, Allworth Financial LP plans to expand in Addison and almost double its number of local employees as it weighs a possible headquarters move from California to Texas.
The wealth management firm, based near Sacramento in Folsom, is building out a 21,000-square-foot space on the sixth floor of Two Addison Circle that will have capacity for 90 seats, Vice Chairman Scott Hanson told Dallas Business Journal in an interview. He said Allworth is taking on roughly 50% more space than it currently occupies in the building, and will double the number of seats. Currently, Allworth has about 55 employees in Addison but only 45 seats.
Allworth's new space will include a mix of individual offices and open workstations, as well as dedicated client meeting spaces. The company will also get signage on the top of the building.
With the additional capacity, Hanson said Allworth plans to continue hiring, and he anticipates it won't be long before the firm needs more space. The possibility of additional space becoming available in the future was one of the reasons Allworth decided to stay at Two Addison Circle, Hanson said. Overall, the growth of Texas drove the company's decision to expand in Addison.
"Texas as a whole is growing dramatically," Hanson said. "We continue to grow by having new clients join us all the time and as people move into the region, we'd certainly like an opportunity to be their wealth manager. We'd really like to continue to build out in the Dallas region. It just makes sense from a business standpoint. It makes sense from a geographical standpoint, the business climate and a lot of people seem to want to live in Texas."
Allworth debuted in North Texas in 2019 when it acquired RAA, a financial advisory firm with $2.8 billion in assets that specialized in serving airline pilots. At the time, Allworth had around 125 employees and the RAA deal brought it to $7.5 billion in assets under management. The fast-growing firm currently has about $20 billion in assets under management and more than 400 employees across its entire footprint, with about half in California, Hanson said.
Since acquiring RAA, the Dallas-Fort Worth region has become a hub for Allworth because of its "deep financial services talent base" and central location in the U.S. DFW has the second-most financial workers of any metropolitan area in the U.S. behind only New York.
Hanson said the company has hosted several conferences in Plano because it is a "convenient, easy place to meet." Allworth's executives also tend to meet with potential partners from other firms when discussing potential mergers and acquisitions in Addison, rather than Sacramento, because of its central location.
Several of Allworth's top executives live in the region as well. The company's general counsel, Barry Greenberg, has lived in the Dallas area for decades. Its chief financial officer, Chris Oddy, and executive vice president of marketing, Brad Boekestein, have both moved from California to Texas.
Allworth's leadership already considers the Dallas region as "kind of our second headquarters." While nothing is imminent, Hanson said Allworth could become the latest in a long list of companies to relocate its corporate headquarters from California to DFW.
"Yes, there's certainly that possibility," Hanson said. "If you just look at California, there's a reason that companies continue to leave every year, every month."
More than 25,000 businesses relocated to Texas from other states from 2010-2019, bringing more than 281,000 jobs, according to a report published in February by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. More than 44,400 jobs came to Texas from California during that time, about 16% of all jobs relocating to the state.
Among the companies that have moved in recent years include Charles Schwab Corp., CBRE Group Inc. and AECOM. Fisher Investments, a wealth advisor with $236 billion under management moved its headquarters from Washington state to Plano last year.
"I love living in California, but it just does not have a very conducive business environment," Hanson said. "It's like they want us to leave."
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