J.P. Morgan's Scott and Atwood Teams Break Away With $130 Million in Revenue to Launch Latigo Peak

Two inherited First Republic practices producing more than $130 million a year left J.P. Morgan Advisors for a self-funded RIA, the largest wirehouse breakaway of 2026 by reported assets.

J.P. Morgan Advisors has lost two of its biggest practices in a single stroke. Phil Scott and Jim Atwood, whose combined businesses now produce more than $130 million in annual revenue, have left the bank's brokerage arm to open Latigo Peak Partners, an independent registered investment adviser that says it starts with roughly $18.6 billion under management and a staff of 48. The firm made the launch public on Oct. 19 in a press release.

Regulatory records back up the exit. FINRA BrokerCheck shows both men's registrations with J.P. Morgan Securities ending on Oct. 18, 2026, and both now appear only as investment adviser representatives of Latigo Peak. Scott is registered under his legal name, Walter Phillip Schlaepfer (CRD 1306585). Atwood is listed as James Allen Atwood (CRD 1268625).

Neither founder grew up inside J.P. Morgan. Their careers run almost in parallel: each first registered with Merrill Lynch in 1984, Atwood that May and Scott that October. Atwood stayed at Merrill until April 2018, when he moved to First Republic Securities; Scott made the same jump in August 2020. Both records then flip to J.P. Morgan Securities on Sept. 29, 2023, the day their First Republic registrations closed after JPMorgan Chase took over the failed bank. J.P. Morgan inherited these books rather than recruiting them, and about three years later they have walked out.

The economics are why this move clears WirehouseHUB's automatic coverage bar many times over. Dividing $130 million of revenue by $18.6 billion of assets gives a yield near 70 basis points, a strong number for an ultra-high-net-worth book. The firm also says the combined business has grown from $34 million in revenue six years ago, which works out to compound growth of about 25% a year through a period that included two changes of employer.

Latigo Peak's SEC paperwork is only days old. Its Form ADV, filed Oct. 16 and posted on the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site, puts the principal office at 3001 PGA Blvd. in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and lists additional offices in Quincy, Mass., Bellevue, Wash., and El Segundo, Calif. Six advisory staff work from the Quincy location, which appears to be the Boston-area hub named in the announcement. The filing counts 10 employees who perform advisory functions, well below the 48 team members the firm cites, and names ASO Meridian Holdings LLC as the managing owner, with Atwood and Schlaepfer as its members. Because the adviser is newly registered, the ADV does not yet report regulatory assets, so the $18.6 billion figure is the firm's own until a later filing confirms it.

The founders are financing the launch themselves and have taken no private equity money, according to the release. Latigo Peak will hold client assets at Charles Schwab and BNY Pershing, and Fusion Financial Partners advised on the build-out. WealthManagement.com noted that SEC records list 10 registrants at the firm today, which lines up with the ADV count and suggests more of the 48-person staff will register over the coming weeks.

The two disciplinary histories are not alike. Atwood's BrokerCheck report carries no disclosures. Scott's report lists four customer disputes dated 2001 through 2011: three are marked as resolved by award or judgment, and one was closed with no action. Nothing on his record is dated after 2011.

Breakaways of this size are rare. Merrill's OpenArc team, which WirehouseHUB covered in 2025, left with about $130 billion, though most of that was tied to corporate stock and benefit plans rather than individual wealth. In December 2025 a UBS group launched 71 West Capital with $6.3 billion. Within 2026, the Financial ADVSR breakaway tracker, current through Oct. 18, showed no wirehouse, regional or bank breakaway larger than $3 billion before Latigo Peak arrived.

J.P. Morgan has been on both ends of mega-moves. InvestmentNews has reported that the bank landed a $28 billion Merrill team in Los Angeles in 2024, and this June J.P. Morgan won a federal restraining order against a $1.85 billion team that left for Morgan Stanley. Whether the bank goes to court over Latigo Peak is the next thing to watch, along with how fast assets show up on the new firm's ADV. The departure also adds to a wirehouse attrition picture that was already heavy in the first half of 2026. J.P. Morgan had not issued a public statement on the departures that WirehouseHUB could find as of Oct. 19.