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Carmel-based Goelzer Investment Management is suing one of the three financial advisers who left the firm earlier this month to join a rival firm, Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc.
Goelzer said it filed the complaint against its former chief growth officer, Don Hutchinson, who joined the firm in 2007 and is one of its largest shareholders. The suit was filed Wednesday evening, the firm said, but the case was still not available in the public docket at midday Thursday.
Hutchinson did not respond to voicemail and email messages left Thursday morning.
Hutchinson, Jeff Borger and Dean Weseli make up HWB Partners, a team that managed a combined $1 billion in assets at Goelzer. The three left Goelzer in mid-April to join Baird’s Indianapolis office. All three were — and still are— Goelzer shareholders, making them part-owners of the firm.
Both before and after moving to Baird, the complaint alleges, Hutchinson, Borger and Weseli contacted Goelzer clients to try and get those clients to move with them to Baird. Borger and Weseli are mentioned in Goelzer’s complaint, but they are not named as defendants in the case.
The complaint alleges that Hutchinson’s actions “have caused and are causing immediate and irreparable harm to Goelzer” and that about $30 million in assets that Hutchinson had managed at Goelzer have already left the firm.
Goelzer currently has about $4.2 billion in assets under management.
Goelzer alleges that Hutchinson’s actions constitute a breach of his shareholder’s agreement with the firm by violating its noncompete clause and its nonsolicitation clause, as well as its prohibition against using confidential Goelzer information outside the scope of his work at Goelzer.
Hutchinson is the fourth-largest shareholder in Goelzer, the complaint says.
“Rather than honoring his fiduciary duties and contractual obligations to his fellow shareholders and despite the fact that he remains a major shareholder in Goelzer, Hutchinson instead chose to act in his own self-interest,” the lawsuit says.
Among other things, Goelzer is asking the court for an injunction that would prohibit Hutchinson from continuing to offer services that compete with Goelzer within a 100-mile radius of Goelzer’s office.
In a written statement provided to IBJ, Goelzer President Chris Cotterill said, “Like many successful companies here in Indiana, our employee-owned firm has been built over decades through hard work and honest competition. I am confident that leaders in our industry, Hoosier business owners, and our clients will understand that we are duty-bound to seek judicial assistance to enforce the standards of fair and ethical competition.”
Excluding the departures, Goelzer has 13 shareholders and a total staff of 30, Cotterill told IBJ earlier this month.
Baird Private Wealth Management, the Baird division that HWB Partners joined, has more than 1,400 financial advisers and, as of Dec. 31, had more than $375 billion in client assets.
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