"At the end of this year, every employee is going to have equity, and part of annual compensation will include profit interest rates going forward," James Bogart told InvestmentNews in an exclusive. The $3 billion RIA aims to reach $22 billion AUM by 2033.
With more ETFs than US stocks now trading, strategists say cybersecurity, energy infrastructure, and animal care rank among the most viable themes for ETF investing.
"More often than not, when two firms come together they're both Envestnet firms or we are going to end up with the lion's share of the assets," Envestnet CEO Chris Todd said amid record-breaking M&A activity for RIAs.
Modern Wealth Management has grown to $10 billion AUM as it becomes the second RIA aggregator in the past month to acquire a firm that specializes in advising firefighters and police officers.
"The future will really belong to firms that treat talent as infrastructure and invest with urgency, otherwise more firms will drift into mediocrity," founder and CEO David DeVoe told InvestmentNews.
Oregon-based Eagle Wealth Management and Idaho-based West Oak Capital give Mercer 11 acquisitions in 2025, matching last year's total.
"We've seen two so far, and it feels like something that the industry has been talking about for years," Turkey Hill Management's Jessica Polito says following the recent Cresset-Monticello and MAI-Evoke Advisors mergers, which could be a sign of future consolidation among large RIAs.
"A lot of advisors think, I don't want to sell to private equity or join a firm that's PE backed, because those evil private equity people like Edward Lewis are just going to strip my firm, fire my people, reduce all the costs," says Modern Wealth's Jason Gordo. "That's just not the way it works in the RIA community."
"That's something we aspire to do, to build out a referral network," Altruist CFO Marc Greenberg told InvestmentNews, though the custodian is currently leaning more on AI and workflow automation to support growth for its 5,100+ advisors.
Longtime Commonwealth marketing executive Sarah Howes has been hired to spearhead advisor marketing at Farther, and 16 ex-Commonwealth advisors totaling $1.7 billion AUM are set to follow her to the technology-focused RIA.
