Ex-PSFS boss back in Philly

Paul Beideman left Philadelphia seven years ago after the bank he used to run, Mellon PSFS, was sold to Citizens Bank.  But he never sold his renovated farmhouse in Glenmoore, Chester County, and now, after leaving the battered commercial banking business and his boss job at Wisconsin's Associated Bank, he's back in the Chester County hills again.

Beideman moved back this summer to run a new firm, Merion Wealth Partners, which aspires to be the back office for the wave of independent financial advisers who have lately been leaving Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and other big firms to set up their own shops.

The Berwyn-based firm has signed up advisers like E. Thorson Cheyne's Medallion Wealth Management, Farmington, Conn., as clients and co-owners. "Our managed assets total $250 million so far, and we have several more deals in the pipeline that we expect will bring our total to $1 billion by the end of this year," Beideman told me.

Other backers and business partners include Bob Andres, onetime Merrill Lynch mortgage boss and chief investment officer and founder of Martindale Anders & Associates; former AmeriGas president and electronic medical-records developer Greg Campell's CVD Ventures; and Fort Wayne-based Ash Brokerage. Traders clear through BNY Mellon.