David S. Routh, President, New Republic Partners
When New Republic Partners President David Routh joined the firm in 2023, he brought with him more than 30 years of experience advising ultra-high-net-worth families, endowments and foundations, most recently as vice chancellor for development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Over the course of his career, Routh has seen the needs and expectations of successful families and their foundations evolve considerably. However, Routh believes the approach of the investment industry has not always kept pace, often to the detriment of the families who should expect more.
Recently, Zelle Dunn, chief operating officer at New Republic Partners, explored a list of far-ranging topics with Routh to gain his perspective about what ultra-high-net-worth families should be asking of their advisors today and in the future, and what excites him about helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire.
David, your career in business has spanned leadership roles at boutique trust companies to national banks to a large public flagship university. How have you seen the expectations of your clients, particularly successful families, evolve over time?
I may be the luckiest guy in the world. Over the course of my career, I have been fortunate to observe and learn from successful families from several important vantage points. I started my career with a family-owned company in my 20s and 30s as the non-family CEO. Later, I had the honor of serving successful families as their wealth advisor with some of the premier boutique and national firms that were very client-focused and culture-driven. And then it was an enormous privilege to be at the table with so many families across the region and the country as they dreamed about the philanthropic or charitable legacies they wanted to leave behind. I have been so fortunate to learn from some very smart families as they thought about how they want to take care of their children and grandchildren, and also how they want to leave the world a better place than they found it.
Looking back, as successful families’ expectations have evolved over time, I do believe they have come to expect more from all of the advisors who serve them. First, I think they have grown fatigued from constantly being “sold” products of all kinds. So much of the industry is dominated by large firms built to sell investment products and services. The wealth advisory divisions of major banks and trust companies are built to be distribution businesses. As clients of these firms, successful families, in my opinion, spend too much of their time responding to “sales pitches.” Interestingly, advisors who work in that world are often frustrated with this sales-driven culture and the quarterly and annual sales goals by product, line of business, etc. To be clear, you can find high-integrity advisors in that environment who work hard to always do the right thing for their clients, but the basic structure of the industry is not conducive to giving successful families what they need now and into the future. That’s a significant issue. I believe successful families are asking better and harder questions today about potential conflicts of interest in business models, the quality of proprietary products and any seemingly unnecessary layers of fees. Increasingly, advisors need to have good answers to all of those questions.
What do you see on the horizon as some of the big issues the investment industry will need to tackle to deliver better outcomes for successful families?
One of the big aspirations of the industry is to be able to deliver access to great private market investments to ultra-high-net-worth clients. In today’s market, there are select firms that can offer access to individual private market funds or a more diversified approach within a fund-of-funds framework. Both of those approaches are often challenging for the average client family. In the single-manager approach, it is very difficult to build a truly diversified private markets investment program – as a large family or institution would build it. In a fund-of-funds approach, clients often pay an additional layer of management fees, as well as an added layer of carried interest, on top of the underlying managers. Neither approach is great, and both approaches only reduce the expected return of the investment.
Not every pool of investment capital needs exposure to private market investments, but if a family is investing some of their capital for future generations or perpetual charitable entities, then I believe private market investments, or “alternative investments,” are important components of a sophisticated investment approach. The industry needs to do a better job of demystifying private market investments and delivering a diversified solution without additional layers of fees.
The goal is to provide families with access to a similar-quality investment program that one might expect to see from a multi-billion-dollar endowment or a large family office. This is of course easier said than done. Successful families should expect an answer from their advisor today to the question, “Can you deliver access to private market investment solutions and hard-to-access managers – and can that be delivered without extra layers of fees?” If not, they should keep looking for a firm that can. Family offices and larger endowments have found ways to solve this challenge, but it is harder for traditional wealth advisory firms to deliver this kind of solution.
Can you share why you are so passionate about the importance of listening when serving successful families?
If you are in the business to serve successful families, there should be only one objective: to meet the unique needs of each client family served. Period. The focus needs to be on the client, not on the institution or its need to turn a quarterly profit. That starts by truly listening to what each client is hoping to accomplish, for every generation of their family – and for their charitable legacies if they have them. As I said earlier, families don’t need more sales pitches. What they need is for their trusted advisor to ask, “What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish for you and your family today and for the next generations? What are your goals and dreams for the charities and causes you are passionate about?”
If I have learned anything over my career it is that successful families can and do have very different answers to those same questions. There are no right or wrong answers. The best advisors start with a whiteboard for each family they serve and build a very bespoke, customized plan for each client. Unfortunately, the industry often wants to fit successful families into their template solutions. Successful families should expect more in the way of true customization to their unique goals and family circumstances. The right approach is to start with the specific goals and dreams of each family and then back into the right combination of planning, investment and family governance solutions. Unfortunately, our industry too often works from the opposite direction by creating what is believed to be a great product and then works to find customers who will say “yes” to the sales pitch.
New Republic Partners is a multi-family office. What does that term mean and why were you attracted to this model of serving clients?
As I mentioned earlier, I have been blessed to work for some great institutions in my career. But for the last chapter in my career, I was hoping to find something different. Not just different to be different – but a different approach to serving successful families that would meet some of the unmet needs that are so obviously present today.
New Republic Partners was created by two successful founding families, both of whom have had their own family offices. Coming from a family office origin sets very different expectations about how clients should be served. A family office has one goal – to meet the unique needs of the family it serves. A multi-family family office has a very similar ethic and approach, just serving more families.
For me, New Republic Partners is the better solution I was hoping to find. In my experience, what we have to offer is very different from what is provided by the vast majority of the wealth advisory industry today. I judged this to be better for my family and me as clients of New Republic Partners, and also for the other clients the firm is fortunate to serve. For families who are hoping to successfully manage multi-generational wealth, a multi-family office approach can be a breath of fresh air.
A family office approach is not driven by selling products – or selling anything. A family office approach expects and demands great investment performance, but it has no proprietary products or planning solutions to sell. The family office approach starts with the needs of the client families and constantly strives to build a truly successful solution – while attempting to eliminate or avoid potential conflicts of interest and unnecessary layers of fees.
The two families who founded New Republic Partners have had exceptional access to great private market investment solutions and to hard-to-access fund managers for decades. Because our founding families get their own core exposure in the exact same investment vehicles at New Republic Partners, we can offer our other qualifying client families the same access, which we believe is very hard to replicate in today’s market. And we can completely customize that solution to each family we serve.
Successful families need advisors who are backed by an entire firm they are confident will be there for them 20-, 30-, 50- years or more. I think the current evolution of the traditional wealth advisory industry will prove that hard to find. This is what I believe New Republic Partners is building and one of the many reasons I was drawn to our firm.
Contact us to explore how New Republic Partners can serve your family’s unique needs.
David S. Routh is president of New Republic Partners. He serves as a member of the firm’s executive committee and as a member of the board of directors. He works with senior leadership to evaluate strategic acquisitions and grow the firm’s network of clients and team talent. He also advises clients on philanthropic planning and gift strategies. David brings decades of experience in advising ultra-high-net-worth families, endowments and foundations.
Reach him at info@newrepublicpartners.com
About New Republic Partners
New Republic Capital, LLC (which does business as “New Republic Partners” or “NRP”) is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about NRP’s investment advisory services can be found in its ADV Part 2 and/or Form CRS, both of which are available upon request.
The opinions expressed are those of NRP. The opinions referenced are as of the date of publication and are subject to change due to changes in the market or economic conditions and may not necessarily come to pass. Forward-looking statements cannot be guaranteed.