Baird has bolstered its private wealth management business with the addition of seven veteran financial advisors from Wells Fargo Advisors at its newest office in Houston, TX. 

The recruits are all legacy AG Edwards & Sons advisors who focus on the retirement planning needs of professionals in the oil and gas industries. Collectively, they have over 135 years of industry experience and oversee some $1.9 billion in client assets.

The Ashcroft Pesek Group is comprised of Richard Ashcroft, financial planning, managing director, and Darrell Pesek, director. Ashcroft and Pesek, who have worked together for 15 years, are joined by financial advisor-in-training Scott Bartosh, and client relationship assistant Kathy Ballew.

The Evans-Allain-Crumley Group consists of Greg Evans, financial planning, senior vice president; Stephen Allain, vice president; and Jerred Crumley. The group also includes client relationship assistant, Ligia Grijalva.

In other moves, John Barnefield, who joined AG Edwards & Sons as a financial advisor in 2001, and William Barrow, who has worked as an advisor for 30 years, have been named vice presidents.

Meanwhile, Baird has established Baird Retirement Management, a new program for financial advisors across Baird whose business focus is on providing retirement planning and investment consulting services to business professionals.  

Baird unveiled its second Houston office in April, when it also brought in a large advisory team to target oil and gas wealth and hired John Hantak as senior vice president, branch manager, responsible for overseeing both of the offices.

Baird is an employee-owned wealth management, capital markets, private equity and asset management firm with offices in the US, Europe and Asia.