There were 93 RIA M&A transactions announced in the first quarter of 2026, up 24% from 75 in Q1 2025 and tying Q3 2025 as the most active quarter ever and representing the strongest start to a year in RIA M&A history, according to DeVoe & Company’s Q1 RIA M&A Deal Book, released Thursday.
The report says the first quarter of this year saw an upmarket shift accelerate as larger RIAs continued to gain share, with mid-sized, large and mega firms driving transaction activity, while small sellers declined to about 32% of the market.
“The RIA seller market is shifting upmarket, with larger firms representing an increasing share of transaction activity. This concentration at the top reflects a change in what sellers bring to market, as firms with greater scale, infrastructure, and growth profiles attract demand from well-capitalized buyers,” the report says.
On the other hand, minority investments expanded down-market, according to the report. Minority transactions comprised 15% of activity, close to the 14% of 2025. An increasing share of minority investments targeted RIAs under $2 billion in assets under management (AUM), “signaling an expansion of capital into smaller firms,” according to DeVoe & Company.
Pointing to the shrinking share of smaller RIAs in M&A activity, David DeVoe, Founder and CEO of DeVoe & Company, told WSR by email: “Firms in the $100M–$500M range once made up about half the market in 2023. Today, they account for less than a third. The driver isn’t fewer small deals—it’s that most of the growth is coming from larger sellers, as consolidators increasingly target scale.”
“Firms in the $100M–$500M range once made up about half the market in 2023. Today, they account for less than a third.” — David DeVoe, Founder and CEO, DeVoe & Company
DeVoe separated consolidators into integrators, which acquire majority ownership and bring the seller fully onto their platform, and aggregators, which typically buy a minority stake and retain their own brand, leadership and a level of autonomy.
According to the report, for this year to date, integrators completed 45 transactions, accounting for over 79% of consolidator activity. Aggregators represented only about 21%, or 12 transactions.
Jeff Berman, Contributing Editor and Reporter at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jeff.berman@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
