26 Main St. in Chatham — Courtesy: The Garibaldi Group
By Joshua Burd
An investment and asset management firm has moved its headquarters to Chatham, where it leases nearly 11,000 square feet as part of a transaction brokered by The Garibaldi Group.
The tenant, R. Seelaus and Co. Inc., is taking 10,707 square feet at 26 Main St. under a lease with Mountain Development Corp. The firm is relocating from Summit, Garibaldi said, noting that the move was based primarily around improving the experience of its 60 employees.
Jeff Garibaldi and Jackie Madden of The Garibaldi Group represented R. Seelaus, while Bill Martini, MDC’s director of acquisitions, represented ownership in-house.
“As a company in 2019 and beyond, growth is a driving factor behind everything we do,” said Annie Seelaus, the firm’s CEO. “We have a well-established business platform that we see infinite possibility in, and we continue to raise the bar for ourselves and our employees year after year to help drive that growth.
“As a management team, when considering strategic investments we could make internally to bolster that initiative, we quickly pinpointed the energy that can be gained from a fresh and vibrant office environment. The Garibaldi Group understood our goal from the start and rightly pointed us to Mountain Development for that new and energized workspace, and we could not be more excited to call 26 Main Street home.”
Founded in 1984, R. Seelaus and Co. is a full-service investment and asset management firm, according to a news release. The company since 2015 has acquired Sunnymeath Asset Management and Sterling Wealth Advisors, a registered investment advisory firm based in Red Bank.
The state-certified Women’s Business Enterprise has occupied the new space since the beginning of the fall, Garibaldi said. It had occupied its previous location at 25 Deforest Ave. in Summit since 2000.
“Our site search focused on a ‘work, live, play’ environment,” Madden said. “We were looking for something that would allow Seelaus to continue their incredible success with employee recruiting and retention. They were looking for a high-quality building with competitive economics, and that is exactly what we were able to accomplish. 26 Main Street provided an opportunity for an exciting fresh start, with a five-star customized build-out.”
Seelaus announced last week that it would be make a significant push into money market sales and trading in the agency product, commercial paper and CD product areas, the news release said, following its inclusion in the Federal Home Loan Bank’s Authorized Diversity Dealer Group. The firm also announced the hiring of Erik Schiele, formerly of Bank of New York, to trade commercial paper and Yankee CDs.