Serial acquirers 'moving up market' amid RIA M&A slowdown

As the RIA industry faces a reported 19% year-over-year drop in third-quarter M&A deals, one industry dealmaker points to buyers becoming more selective with their acquisition sizes as a top factor. 

“A lot of the serial acquirers, because they've covered a lot of geographies, they're really looking at bigger deals,” attorney Corey Kupfer told InvestmentNews. “That would be consistent with the serial acquirers moving up market. I think you see that in other PE [private equity]-backed industries where at some point the buyers start focusing on bigger deals.” 

Kupfer, who founded his eponymous RIA M&A law firm, classified firms with at least $1 billion in assets under management as reaching “bigger deal” status for acquisitions. New data released from investment bank DeVoe & Co shows that RIA M&A deal count fell 19% in the third quarter through Sept. 22 compared with the same period in 2025. The decline threatens to put an end to the industry's seven consecutive quarters of record-setting deal flow tracked by DeVoe. 

“The tailwinds in the independent wealth management space are strong, and they're long-term tailwinds. During the course of this evolution of continued consolidation, you will have quarters where there are fewer deals done. You will have quarters where only the most premium assets are being acquired,” said Haig Ariyan, founder and CEO of Arax, an acquirer backed by private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners. 

“That is the natural course of a highly fragmented industry consolidating over a period of many years, not within a short window,” said Ariyan. “But the highest quality businesses are going to continue to be very attractive to firms like Arax.” 

Acquirers chase bigger RIA deals

Data from the first half of the year shows that the average size of RIA acquisitions has increased. Acquired RIA assets nearly doubled in the first half of 2026, according to Fidelity's midyear report, with total client assets involved in transactions jumping 88% to $343 billion. The median size of acquired RIAs rose from $517 million to $630 million in assets under management, Fidelity found. 

Acquirers are also not finding the bargain price needed to justify buying smaller firms, adds Kupfer. 

“I believe that the multiple differences in valuation between the small deals and bigger deals, are not as big as you would think they would be,” added Kupfer. “I think that the smaller deals, when these serial acquirers are looking at it, they say, ‘I'm not getting that much of a discount for the smaller deals, might as well focus on the bigger ones.’ I think that's a factor as well.” 

As of September 22, DeVoe found 72 RIA transactions had been announced during the third quarter, a 19% decline from the 89 transactions announced during the same period in 2025. The firm attributed RIA dealmaking slowing down due to tariffs, the war with Iran, and other macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions.  

“I firmly believe that we're in a position now where a slowdown in M&A activity will benefit us because that will provide us an opportunity to maintain and strengthen the selective nature of the acquisitions that we make,” added Ariyan. 

The PE question

RedBird is a majority investor in Arax, which manages $43 billion in client assets. Private equity-backed buyers accounted for 89% of RIA M&A transactions in the first half of this year, according to Fidelity.  

Kupfer added that growing advisor opposition to selling to firms backed by private equity could be another factor driving an M&A slowdown. He mentioned hearing such feedback during conferences hosted by the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). 

“There's an increasing frequency in which I hear people asking the question, what are the alternatives to the PE-backed aggregators? What if I don't want to sell to a PE-backed aggregator?" said Kupfer. “A lot of those folks felt very strongly that you couldn't maintain the fiduciary duty with the PE backed pressures.”