Covenant Multifamily Offices in San Antonio launched in mid-February and is already closing on $1 billion in AUM.

A Texas wealth management firm less than two months old is closing in on the landmark of $1 billion in assets under management.

San Antonio’s Covenant Multifamily Offices, which opened its doors in mid-February, already manages around $925 million for over 90 families, most of whom followed the firm’s management team from Frost Bank in San Antonio.

But many of those relationships were forged even before Covenant managing partners John Eadie and Kevin Harris began working for Frost Bank six years ago.

“There’s a lot of history there,” said Eadie.

He began working with clients twenty years ago while advising high net worth executives at Ernst & Young, and Harris, who specializes in alternative investment strategies, cultivated clients at Morgan Stanley and AIM.

After six years of heading Frost Bank’s Wealth Management Services Group, Eadie and Harris wanted to start their own “boutique, multi-family office-type firm rather than be part of a large organization,” Eadie said.

While Edie said Frost was “surprised” at the decision, relations with the bank were not ruptured, adding that Covenant planned to refer its clients who needed lending and other banking services to Frost.

Richard Kardys, group executive vice president heading wealth management for Frost, said he “wished [Covenant] well,” but declined to discuss the impact of the client defections.

The bank “chose not to reconstitute” its Wealth Management Services Group after Eadie and Harris left, Kardys said, but will instead deliver those services through its trust and brokerage departments.

After finalizing its clients' transition to a new firm, Covenant will focus on “organic, referral-based growth,” in San Antonio and throughout Texas and hopes to reach $2 billion in AUM within five years, Eadie said.

Covenant is targeting high level corporate executives, small to mid-size business owners and multi-generational business owners with a net worth between $10 million and $80 million, according to Eadie.

Offering multi-family office services was “critical” to Covenant’s business plan, he explained.

“We didn’t want to be just an investment firm,” Eadie said. “There are a lot of families with complexity who need help. But as more firms call themselves multi-family offices, we have to demonstrate we can truly bring all those services and capabilities to the table.”

And while the San Antonio market is now more competitive than ever, there is still plenty of business to go around, say local executives.

“Texas is doing better than the rest of the country and San Antonio is seeing job expansion in business, government and the military,” said Kadys. “It’s a good place to be growing.”