In my recent quarterly M&A review, I discussed the rise of boutique shops as the wealth management M&A landscape evolves. This week we continue our focus on M&A with the announcement of this year’s M&A 5: Top Wealth Management M&A Professionals, honoring outstanding leadership and achievement among investment bankers, strategic consultants and in-house experts. We also examine the non-linear view of capital structures, when public listing isn’t the final destination.
In addition, we bring you our monthly wealthtech and weekly news roundups, Silver Oak on building your process into an advantage, Helium on refocusing clients during elections, Summit staking two firms, timing and elements of succession plans, a marketing rebrand, overlooked wealthtech tools, Kingswood’s latest acquisition, AmeriFlex’s brokerless matchmaking, First Eagle’s active ETFs, and Smarsh’s AI-based communications surveillance tool.
M&A 5: Congratulations to this year’s list of Top Wealth Management M&A Professionals. We honor Marty Bicknell, CEO and President of Mariner Wealth Advisors; David DeVoe, CEO and Founder of DeVoe & Company; Bomy Hagopian, Partner and Head of Wealth Management at Berkshire Global Advisors; Pradeep Jayaraman, President of Bluespring Wealth Partners; as well as Liz Nesvold, Chair at Emigrant Partners and Vice Chair at Emigrant Bank.
Is going public the goal?: In recent years, several large enterprises in wealth management have delisted with private investment, reflecting a non-linear view of capital structures that doesn’t assume going public is the pinnacle of capital structure evolution. We discuss this trend with Joe Duran, Managing Partner at Rise Growth Partners; Joe Faber, CFO of Steward Partners Global Advisory; Bruce Cameron, Partner and CEO of Berkshire Global Advisors; and Gilbert Dychiao, Managing Director and Head of Financial Institutions Investment Banking at Oppenheimer & Co.
Deals & Recruiting Roundup: Meet our newest Recruiter of the Month, GinaRose Galli, Strategic Growth Manager at Savvy Wealth. We also cover Merchant investing in Republic Capital Group, Kingswood’s deals with Eudaimonia, Summit taking minority stakes in BFG Wealth and Canon Capital, Focus agreeing for CPG to join Transform Wealth, Avantax acquiring SEP Financial Services, The AmeriFlex Group launching an Advisor Transition Network, Carson Wealth recruiting True North Financial, Commonwealth adding advisors through Aegis Consulting, NewEdge Advisors bringing on BFS Advisory Group, Dynasty adjusting its executive team, Mercer appointing Elizabeth Hioe as Chief People Officer and Morgan Stanley recruiting The Brown Wealth Management Group.
Wealthtech Roundup: Meet our newest Wealthtech Leader of the Month, Andrew Altfest, CEO of FP Alpha. Other entries include Envestnet stockholders agreeing to Bain Capital’s buyout, Addepar launching trading and dashboard tools for advisors, Smarsh introducing Intelligent Agent and enhancing its AWS partnership, Pontera partnering with 401GO on retirement plans, Manulife advisors gaining access to Conquest Planning’s solutions, BetaNXT launching the real-time and open architecture DataXChange platform, Asset-Map giving LPL advisors discounted access to its tools, Flourish Cash integrating with eMoney’s Decision Center, and Morgan Stanley choosing 25 companies globally for its 2024 Inclusive Ventures Lab.
Building a process advantage: Billy Hopkins, Founder and CEO of Silver Oak Securities, describes how to build and articulate your business processes into a competitive advantage, with four steps from Kelly Waltrich, Co-Founder and CEO of Intention.ly.
Calming election nerves: JJ Feldman, Partner and Co-Head of Wealth Management at Helium Advisors, counsels financial advisors to steer clients away from presidential election anxieties, and toward history, policy and fundamentals.
Minority stakes: Summit Financial is adding advisors from BFG Wealth and Canon Capital Management, with approximately $470 million in combined client assets. At the same time, Summit took minority stakes in the RIAs through its Summit Growth Partners division. Stan Gregor, CEO of Summit; BFG Founder and CEO Ralph Burnett; and Canon Founder Peter Roland provide comments.
A graceful exit requires a plan: Jeff Nash, CEO and Co-Founder of Bridgemark Strategies, discusses timelines and elements of succession plans with Jason Inglis, Chief Revenue Officer at Sowell Management; Andrea Shafer, EVP and Chief Supervision Officer at Cambridge Investment Research; and Jesse Kurrasch, COO of The AmeriFlex Group.
Marketing rebrand: White Glove and TouchFuse, the holding company of Acquire Direct and LeadJig, announced that the combined company has rebranded as AcquireUp and provides new seminar marketing offerings as part of the rebrand. CEO Greg Bogich, COO Alex Hug and CMO Derek Janis provide comments.
Overlooked wealthtech tools: We spoke with three founders and CEOs of wealthtech firms to learn where advisors are missing the benefits of lesser-known digital tools. Christopher King, Founder and CEO of Eaglebrook; James Rockwood, Founder and CEO of CapIntel; and Arnulf Hsu, Founder and CEO of GReminders, walk us through examples of some relatively unknown features that advisors often miss.
Nashville acquisition: Kingswood U.S. acquired Eudaimonia Partners and Eudaimonia Advisors, two RIAs of Nashville, Tennessee-based Eudaimonia Group, and entered into a strategic alliance with Eudaimonia Asset Management, its in-house TAMP and RIA. Together, the three RIAs manage more than $1 billion in client assets. Kingswood CEO, President and Managing Partner, Michael Nessim, and Eudaimonia Founder and President, John Goodson, provide comments.
Directly linking buyers and sellers: The AmeriFlex Group launched Advisor Transition Network (ATN), a platform connecting qualified buyers and sellers of financial advisory practices directly. AmeriFlex Founder and CEO, Thomas Goodson, and its Chief Transitional Wealth Planner, Hannah Buschbom, provide comments.
Active ETF entrant: First Eagle Investments is entering the active ETF space later this year with the First Eagle Global Equity ETF and First Eagle Overseas Equity ETF. The new ETFs will be supported by The RBB Fund Complex. Mehdi Mahmud, CEO and President of First Eagle; Jay Lisowski, Head of Product Management and Development at First Eagle; and Steve Plump, CEO of RBB, provide comments.
AI-based regtech: Smarsh announced an AI-based communications surveillance tool, Intelligent Agent, will be available in early 2025. CEO Kim Crawford Goodman and Chief Product Officer Goutam Nadella provide comments.
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Larry Roth
CEO
Wealth Solutions Report
