RIAs Have Another Custodian Option

Two Equity Trust Company divisions, Equity Advisor Solutions and ETC Brokerage, have combined to form Innovayte, a custody and clearing company that supports entrepreneurial independent registered advisors (RIAs) and broker-dealers.

Equity Trust, which owns Equity Advisor Solutions and the associated ETC Brokerage Services, is co-owned by Jeffrey and Richard Desich.

Catherine “Cat” Davies, who has been in the financial services industry for over 25 years and most recently served as chief solutions officer at Hightower, will lead the new company.

“With the launch of Innovayte, we have a better way to support entrepreneurs, focusing on business outcomes, not asset size. We will be inviting a select number of advisors whose practices have long been overlooked by the big firms and deserve a greater deal of attention from their partners,” said Jeffrey A. Desich, Innovayte chairman and EVP of Equity Trust Company.

Innovayte aims to deliver the infrastructure and support needed to achieve better business outcomes for advisors and broker-dealers that desire an edge from their custodian and partner rather than a platform or an employer.

The company is an offshoot of Richard Desich’s 1974 brokerage firm, which later became Equity Trust Company. The Desich family founded Equity Advisor Solutions in the early 2010s, with plans to add self-clearing capabilities and other new options, and “decided to form a new company to bring all the pieces together.”

The company is entering an already crammed market: in addition to industry heavyweights Schwab, Fidelity, Pershing, and LPL Financial, RIAs can custody with Goldman Sachs, which has been steadily signing up large clients since launching the custody solutions business in 2020.