Focus Financial keeps rolling, buys Florida RIA

Focus Financial Partners Inc. continues to snap up wealth management firms, and on Thursday morning said it had reached an agreement to buy Ullmann Wealth Partners of Jacksonville Beach, Fla. with $582 million in client assets.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In an era when mergers and acquisitions of registered investment advisers seems to only be ever increasing, this is the 28th acquisition this year for Focus Financial Partners. In 2019, Focus Financial Partners had its most significant year in terms of M&A and when it clocked a total of 34 acquisitions.

Just three weeks ago, Focus Financial Partners said it was acquiring Cardinal Point Management and Cardinal Point Wealth Management, a $1.2 billion Canadian wealth management business that operates in both the U.S. and Canada.

Focus Financial Partners over the summer raised $800 million to fund its M&A pipeline, according to the company. Focus Financial Partners has two categories for deals: partner firms and mergers. The Ullmann purchase was deemed a "partner firm" by the company.

Partner firms maintain their operational independence, according to the company, while using the scale, economics and best practices offered by Focus Financial to meet their business objectives.

RIA aggregators like Focus Financial have seen an explosion in growth over the past decade, fueled in large part by private equity managers seeking the stable 25% to 35% returns of well managed wealth management firms.