Last week, I attended the Money Management Institute’s (MMI) Annual Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was wonderful connecting with so many of you there. I’m grateful to MMI for the opportunity to speak, as well as to hear so many industry leaders and experts bring insights on topics relevant to our industry. Our coverage of the conference includes keynotes on AI and politics, my insights on private equity in wealth management and much more.
In addition, we bring you our weekly Deals & Recruiting Roundup, Advyzon on problem solving, Pathstone’s acquisition of Hall Capital, Carson’s acquisition of Sweet Financial, recruiting by Avantax and Raymond James, Sycamore’s integration with Quik! and AlphaTrAI’s rebranding as Praxis.
Deals & Recruiting Roundup: This edition covers the ECHELON Partners third quarter RIA M&A Deal Report, Stone Point agreeing to acquire a majority stake in Kestra, Pathstone agreeing to acquire Hall Capital, Beacon Pointe acquiring Landmark Wealth, Naviter buying back WAGN’s minority stake, Carson Group acquiring Sweet Financial Partners, AlphaCore merging with All Season, Raymond James picking up a team from RBC, Journey Strategic Wealth recruiting advisors Chad Faulkenberry and Jill Isbell, Avantax recruiting 10 advisors, XYPN launching its Sapphire corporate RIA affiliation model and World Investment Advisors adding Raymond James as a custodian.
AI and data science: On the first day of the MMI Conference, MMI’s President and CEO, Craig Pfeiffer, led the introduction, followed by a keynote on AI by Laura Edell, Chief Data Scientist, AI Markets and Innovation at Microsoft.
A panel discussion about the practical implications of AI and data science followed, led by Will Karkar, Senior Partner, Head of Strategic Growth at Alpha FMC, with panelists Katie D’Angelo, Managing Director, Head of Global Relationship Management, Intermediary Sales at Allspring Global Investments; Marshall McDonald, Head of AI Strategy and Transformation at LPL Financial; and David Wu, Managing Director, Head of AI Product & Architecture Strategy at Morgan Stanley.
Election impacts: On the second day of the MMI conference, Jeff Bush, Principal at The Washington Update, brought a non-partisan, no-holds-barred review of the election year and the impacts and consequences of the elections on financial advisors.
Following Bush’s presentation, Pfeiffer took the stage with the MMI Board of Governors current Chair, Anne Steer, Head of Distribution at Congress Asset Management; and Chair-Elect, Brendan Clark, CEO of Clark Capital Management Group, to provide an update on the organization’s activities, membership and objectives.
“No end in sight” for private equity: On the second afternoon of the MMI conference, Aaron Roome, Managing Director, Head of Market Structure and Wealth, Financial Institutions Investment Banking at Wells Fargo, and I discussed the trends and opportunities for M&A buyers and sellers in wealth management in our session titled “The Private Equity Playbook in Wealth and Asset Management.”
The art of problem solving: David Goes, President of Enterprise Sales at Advyzon, presents five keys to make an advisor a go-to person for a client or prospect rather than a “salesperson.”
Minnesota purchase: Carson Group acquired Fairmont, Minnesota-based Sweet Financial Partners, a 12-person team that has $1 billion in client assets. Bryan Sweet, Managing Partner and Wealth Advisor at Sweet Financial Partners; Burt White, CEO of Carson Group; and Michael Belluomini, SVP of Mergers and Acquisition at Carson Group, provided comments.
$45 billion acquisition: RIA Pathstone agreed to acquire Hall Capital Partners, an RIA managing about $45 billion in client assets. Pathstone’s backers – Kelso & Company, Lovell Minnick Partners and management – are all investing additional capital to support the acquisition. Matthew Fleissig, CEO of Pathstone, and Katie Hall, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Hall Capital, provided comments.
2024 recruiting: Cetera-owned Avantax announced that it has recruited 10 advisors with $390 million in combined assets so far in 2024. Andy Watts, President of Avantax Wealth Management, provided comments.
Vegas recruits: Raymond James added a team of four advisors in Las Vegas who managed over $1.1 billion in assets at RBC Capital Markets. The Business Exit Planning Advisors of Raymond James joined the firm’s employee advisor channel – Raymond James & Associates.
Forms and data integration: The Sycamore Company integrated with Quik! to help advisors and their firms automatically populate client forms, reduce manual data entry and mitigate errors. Mike Overdorf, President and Founder of Sycamore, and Richard Walker, CEO of Quik!, provided comments.
Wealthtech rebrand: Wealthtech firm AlphaTrAI announced that it rebranded as Praxis Solutions and repositioned its value proposition. CEO Bill Dwyer commented, along with board member and computer science professor Henrik Christensen.
We’ve connected with approximately 6,000 of you on LinkedIn, and grateful you give us the opportunity to serve you!
Larry Roth
CEO
Wealth Solutions Report