Name: Kevin Peters
Firm: Morgan Stanley Wealth Management
Location: Palm Beach, FL
Team Custodied Assets: $3.8 billion
Background: Kevin Peters grew up in Middletown, Connecticut, and attended the University of Kentucky, where he majored in finance and business law. Although he initially considered a legal career, his he ultimately decided to become an advisor in 1983. He spent 18 years at Morgan Stanley’s predecessor firms before moving to Merrill Lynch in 2000. However, a pivotal meeting with James Gorman in 2007 eventually led him back to Morgan Stanley, where he has been ever since. Today, Peters leads a 12-member team comprising four partners—including his son—and eight support staff. Peters personally works with 75 families.
Competitive Edge: “We are not a family office, but we do everything for our clients that you can think of,” Peters explains. “We’re not just wealth managers; we’re problem solvers—whether it’s structuring a business sale, advising on stock options, or helping a child secure their first mortgage.”
Approach: “We help clients think through not just how to exit a business, but how to structure it in the best way for their family,” says Peters. While many families share similar needs, he stresses that the real value is in customizing each portfolio for a client’s specific situation. In public market equities, he favors high-quality dividend payers, with a diversified, equal-weighted approach over cap-weighted indexes. For fixed income, client portfolios will often adopt a barbell approach, combining shorter-term and floating-rate securities to hedge against inflation concerns. An early adopter of private markets, Peters highlights private credit as particularly attractive now thanks to their current outsized returns. His team also looks at triple-net real estate and private equity secondaries.
Best Advice: Peters emphasizes the importance of discipline. “We are not making changes every six months based on the noise of markets or politics,” he says. “Sometimes the best advice isn’t what a client wants to hear, but it’s our responsibility to be honest and unbiased.” He also believes in continuous learning. “No one has a monopoly on ideas: I try to read everything I can, then synthesize that information so I can make the best decisions for clients.”
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