Focus Financial reports strong M&A numbers

With more than four months remaining in the year, Focus Financial Partners Inc. said Thursday that it had already exceeded the number of RIA transactions this year than it recorded in all of 2018. In announcing its quarterly earnings, Focus Financial said it has closed 30 registered investment adviser transactions so far in 2019, 20% more than the 25 it recorded last year. Of those 30, six were businesses Focus Financial calls "partner firms." Such firms maintain operational independence but benefit from the scale of Focus Financial. Recommended video: The inside story of consolidation, M&A The remaining 24 transactions were what Focus Financial calls "mergers," or RIAs that join or move to Focus Financial partner firms. Focus Financial now has 63 partner firms in its network. The company reported $35.1 million in acquired base earnings from the half-dozen partner firm acquisitions this year. (More: Flood of RIA sales pushes industry toward a buyer's market) Focus Financial is an RIA roll up firm and its initial public offering a year ago last month was watched closely last year by many in the industry. "Our IPO further raised our visibility, generating a far greater number of M&A opportunities than we had initially anticipated," said the firm's chief financial officer, Jim Shanahan, in a statement. "We are capitalizing on these transactions because they represent substantial future growth and diversification benefits for our business, in turn creating attractive, incremental value for our shareholders." Focus Financial reported total revenue of $301.5 million in the second quarter, reflecting year-over-year growth of 30.3%, according to the company. Focus Financial is buying "quality firms" and management "couldn't be more pleased how [our] pipeline is unfolding this year," said the network's founder and CEO, Rudy Adolf, on a conference call with analysts and investors Thursday morning. Meanwhile, shares of Focus Financial have struggled, and on Thursday afternoon were trading at $24.66 a piece, near its all-time lows. Its IPO price last summer was $33 per share; last September share of Focus Financial hit their highs of $49 but slumped in the final quarter of the year, a time when the broad market saw a sharp sell-off.