In a dealmaking environment that's been plagued by opaque processes and endless wasted effort, Alaris Acquisitions is betting that technology – along with a healthy dose of transparency – can finally break the cycle.
This week, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based M&A consultancy firm launched a new Buyer Portal, a digital forum that promises to reshape how RIA sellers and buyers connect.
“The Buyer Portal gives firms a way to market themselves in a public, accessible space that’s never existed before in wealth management M&A,” founder and CEO Allen Darby said in a statement announcing the launch. “For sellers, it removes guesswork and introduces a transparent window into who buyers truly are. For buyers, it’s an opportunity to stand out on the strength of their culture, integration philosophy and long-term vision.”
In an interview with InvestmentNews, Darby lamented what he saw as an epidemic of slog-paced deal discussions in the RIA space, with sellers being shuffled through “financial auctions” in which the highest bidder wins.
The problem, he argues convincingly, is that traditional dealmakers are too hung up on spreadsheets and NDAs, and don't devote any meaningful time or energy to assess compatibility.
“The matching mechanism is math, not fit,” Darby said. “It’s not measuring culture; it’s the size of your check.”
While buyers and sellers might insist that cultural fit is the most important thing, Darby says current processes don't support that outcome. In his experience, sellers would spend months divulging sensititve data to buyers, only to discover irreconcilable differences later on.
“It’s a death of 5,000 paper cuts,” Darby said. “Every time they do that with an individual buyer, they have to go through the same process.”
To help solve the problem, Alaris says the Buyer Portal draws on its database of more than 70 buyers, including major and regional firms, each profiled in detail.
Over the years, Darby says buyers have spent up to 50 hours with Alaris, providing information on everything from their investment philosophy to integration style. Alaris staff conduct on-site interviews and collect partner reviews, all in service of what the company calls a more “humanized” M&A experience.
The portal, which builds on the proprietary Lens AI platform Alaris introduced earlier this year, lets sellers search for buyers based on specific criteria and review video interviews. Crucially, Darby says, it gives them a way to "date behind the scenes," vetting potential buyers without giving themselves away.
“You [as a potential seller] can read about them – who they are, how they’re articulating client experience, what their deal structure is, what they’re going to require you to do in terms of decision-making,” Darby said. “The videos are also very important here because you now get to hear them speak to those points too.”
Instead of inviting dozens of buyers to every deal, Darby says his platform's goal is to introduce sellers to buyers who are objectively compatible. And while he knows the importance of culture all too well – having experienced Goldman Sachs' ill-fated acquisition of United Capital – Alaris' programmatic compatibility process doesn't try to capture that.
“We’re not trying to measure culture, because I don’t think you can; you can only experience culture,” Darby said. “But we can measure compatibility.”
Practically, that means screening for mismatches – like a seller who wants an all-cash deal meeting a buyer who insists on equity rollover, or a seller who wants to retain portfolio management autonomy facing a buyer who demands centralization.
“There are hundreds of these data points you can measure objectively,” Darby said. “Every data point has a context around it, too.”
And while he sees Alaris' new portal as a net win for all buyers and sellers, Darby projects that regional buyers – those with $2 billion to $10 billion in assets – would stand to benefit most.
“Those buyers don’t often get invited to the auctions these investment bankers run," he said. "So it certainly gives them exposure that they likely don’t get in the auction-led process."
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