The wealth management industry continues to consolidate, driven by growing interest from private equity firms.
Berkshire Global Advisors reported that 2025 was the most active year on record for U.S. wealth management M&A, with 349 transactions involving RIAs with more than $100 million in assets under management (AUM), much higher than 2024’s 276 deals.
Private equity-backed RIA platforms were once again the most active buyers, accounting for approximately 86% of strategic acquisitions in 2025, continuing a long-term trend: PE share of strategic acquisitions was 72% in 2021.
The report said, “New sponsors continue to enter the space, drawn to the sector’s predictable fee revenue, sticky client bases, scalable business models and a still-fragmented landscape ripe for consolidation.”
In its latest report, ECHELON Partners confirmed the record-setting pace of M&A in 2025 and said it showed no signs of slowing in the first quarter of this year, with 142 transactions closed, a new record that surpassed the 125 quarterly deal records set in both the third quarter of 2025 and the fourth quarter of 2024. ECHELON highlighted that the milestone is “notable given the quarter’s macroeconomic headwinds and uncertainty in private credit markets.”
The predominance of PE-backed transactions in the first quarter carried over from last year. ECHELON’s report said PE was involved in 102 transactions, accounting for 71.8% of the first-quarter deals.
The Cardinal Haven Initiative
Haven Tower Group launched an exclusive strategic alliance with Cardinal Communications Strategies to serve PE firms looking to expand their presence in wealth management, often being new entrants to the space, addressing their need for support from experienced industry communications firms.
“The new strategic alliance – called the Cardinal Haven Initiative – is designed to support private equity firms investing in wealth management and the wealth management enterprises they acquire and build,” according to the press release announcing the initiative.
“It pairs Haven Tower’s industry-specific expertise across RIAs, hybrids, dual registrants, family offices and wealth platforms with Cardinal’s experience helping private equity firms communicate clearly, consistently and credibly in markets that are intensely competitive in capturing deal flow,” the release continued.
“We’ve seen a recurring dynamic in the market,” said Joseph Kuo, Founder and CEO of Haven Tower Group and Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Ascentix Partners. “Private equity firms active in wealth management often retain agencies that do a great job for PE generally — but wealth management isn’t their daily world. Then portfolio companies feel stuck, because they need a partner that's fully immersed in the advisor ecosystem. This alliance fixes that problem.”
The initiative builds on a longstanding relationship between Kuo and Marc Raybin, Founder and President of Cardinal Communications. The two have known each other for two decades, working together on multiple occasions.
According to Raybin, “Our Cardinal Haven Initiative is an exciting alliance that addresses multiple practical needs on both sides of any private equity transaction in the wealth management space. It’s also a strategic partnership that has happened very organically, as part of a relationship between each other built over many years.”
Formed To Fill A Gap In Communications
The alliance is designed to support communications needs for all stages of private equity ownership in wealth management, including pre-deal narrative positioning and sponsor visibility, integration, growth communications and exit readiness.
The firms also say they hope to solve what they view as a common market misalignment, in which portfolio companies are often referred by their private equity owners to generalist financial services agencies that neither treat wealth management clients as a top priority nor understand the uniqueness of financial services.
Raybin added, “Sponsors want sponsor-level communications rigor, and portfolio companies want an agency that truly understands their industry. Haven Tower brings that wealth management fluency, and we bring private equity communications discipline. Together we can support both, without either firm changing who it is.”
Haven Tower is also a Strategic Partner Firm of Ascentix Partners, the New York City-headquartered consortium of consultancies delivering growth consulting, M&A advisory, technology and operations, outsourced compliance supervision and brand elevation to the wealth management industry.
Wealth Solutions Report can be reached at info@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
Haven Tower Group is a part of the Ascentix Partners Network, where Larry Roth, CEO of WSR, serves as Founder and Managing Partner. All decisions on editorial content are made by WSR’s editorial team.
