Equity culture drives $503M firm's move to Merit Financial

After being registered with Kestra for the past decade, Kurt Wiegert and his $503 million Maryland-based firm Towson Wealth Management have joined Georgia-based hybrid RIA Merit Financial Advisors. 

Towson marks the eighth acquisition so far this year for Merit, which manages $26 billion in assets including roughly $18.6 billion in advisory assets and $2.9 billion in brokerage assets via its affiliation with Purshe Kaplan Sterling. Towson's four-person team moving to Merit includes two next-generation advisors whom Wiegert hired out of college. 

“I talked to a bunch of firms, but really what I think separated Merit from the other firms was the culture, and that it wasn't a place where advisor teams go to just retire,” Wiegert told InvestmentNews. “The vibe was definitely looking for advisor teams that are looking to transition and have deeper scale, but are on a trajectory for long-term growth. I think that really is the core differentiator of Merit versus a lot of the other aggregators that are out there.” 

Towson Wealth Management oversees $297.5 million in assets under management and $205 million in assets under administration across 350 client households. Wiegert explained his firm was at a “crossroads” of needing to build infrastructure to further scale before opting to lean on Merit’s technology and operational resources. Wiegert and some of his staff received equity in Merit as part of their transition package. 

“Firms that either limit equity or advisors don't want equity have a certain culture that's going to come with those partners that are joining. They are not looking at what the next 10 years look like, they're looking at what the next two years look like, or frankly, of their initial transition,” said Wiegert. “When you have a lion's share of the partners that are excited about the opportunity to take equity, they're looking at a much longer trajectory of how we grow this firm together.” 

Equity as a cultural signal

Schwab’s RIA compensation report released earlier this year found that 53% of firms with over $5 billion in assets under management offered equity to advisors who joined with an existing book of business. The percentage of equity offers dropped to 41% for RIAs over $1 billion in assets and 34% of firms over $250 million. 

“We've really focused on bringing in the growers and the ones that want to lean in and roll equity from their previous firm into Merit,” said David Wahlen, EVP, strategic partners at Merit. “The equity optionality that we have and the willingness of our sellers to come in and take a substantial amount of that has been a key success point of our strategy.” 

Private equity firm Constellation Wealth Capital took a minority stake last year in Merit, which expects to finish this year with around 13 to 15 acquisitions, according to Wahlen. The first half of 2026 marked another record-setting deal flow for M&A transactions across the RIA industry, according to a midyear report from Berkshire Global Advisors. 

“I think there's a lot of platforms out there that will weigh heavier into the cash portion,” Wahlen said of the market for advisors. “I think it could be easy just to write a big check and go win every deal you want with upfront cash, but the groups that are willing to take that equity and lean in ask about equitizing their team beyond just themselves and what that looks like over time is a great cultural green flag for us.”