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Dick Kraft & Matt Kraft Merrill Lynch
Montvale, N.J.
The Kraft Group at Merrill Lynch often has a problem getting prospects to return its calls."We call prospects directly, but it's a difficult business," says senior partner Dick Kraft. "Our phone calls often go unreturned."
But don't wring your hands over Dick and Matt Kraft. The father- and-son team, which targets the CEOs of privately owned companies likely to go public, concentrates on the sliver of the ultra- affluent market that has at least $10 million to invest. They get most of their new clients through referrals and references. And their business - virtually all fee-based, with $300 million in assets under management from just 37 households - is on the cutting edge of wealth management.
The team is relatively new. Thirty-year-old Matt joined his father in 2000 after his own career at Merrill. Starting as a financial analyst with the firm after graduating from Indiana University in 1994, Matt spent part of his four-and-one-half years at that job accompanying financial advisors on client meetings.
"It was the client contact I truly loved," he says. "I figured the best way to move to this side of the business would be to increase my credentials."
He did that by returning to school full-time and earning an MBA in a 16-month accelerated program at Columbia University. Before graduating...