Dynasty Financial, in first-ever acquisition, picks up TruClarity’s breakaway business

Dynasty Financial CEO Shirl Penney

Dynasty currently has 35 job openings, and CEO Shirl Penney said TruClarity's people, including CEO Pamela Stross, were a big part of its appeal.

Dynasty Financial Partners is stepping up its breakaway transition game with the acquisition of TruClarity Management Solutions, a platform designed for wirehouse brokers making the transition to independence.

TruClarity’s transition business is being separated from its existing registered investment advisor, which is being sold to One Seven, according to CityWire. Even though Dynasty’s back- and middle-office platform has more than $72 billion from 49 registered investment advisors, it doesn’t operate as a corporate RIA, which is why the RIA was separated.

According to the announcement Thursday, TruClarity has “guided dozens of financial advisors to successful breakaway outcomes” since it was founded in 2015.

Dynasty Chief Executive Shirl Penney said he is acquiring TruClarity for the technology, business in the pipeline and the people, including president and CEO Pamela Stross, who will join Dynasty as a consultant.

“Pam is one of the most seasoned and experienced executives in the whole RIA ecosystem,” Penney said. “She is coming on as a senior consultant who will focus on sales, relationship management and working with our Advisor-to-CEO program.”

In addition to Stross, Penney said the acquisition, which is Dynasty’s first since the business launched 12 years ago, will help fill some of the company’s 35 current job openings.

“I’m really excited about their people,” he said. “We’re trying to find talent in everything; we’re hiring across the board.”

St. Petersburg, Florida-based Dynasty has entered into an exclusive, nonbinding letter of intent to acquire TruClarity, which is also based in St. Petersburg.

Penney said the deal should close within 30 days.

Penny Phillips, president and co-founder of Journey Strategic Wealth, described the TruClarity deal as an example of how the RIA is “structurally, ever-evolving, and this isn’t the last time you’ll hear about firms changing, merging, selling, restructuring, for a multitude of reasons.”

“At the end of the day, individual advisors need to be wholly focused on building the deepest rapport possible with clients and continuing to double down on the value they provide every day,” Phillips added.

Chuck Failla, founder and chief executive of Sovereign Financial Group, said technology and platform providers are growing to keep pace with the rapid growth of the overall RIA space.

“This means more and better choices for how advisors can serve their clients,” he said. “If we look back even just five or 10 years, advisors were able to choose from about a handful of wirehouses and perhaps a dozen solid choices in the independent broker-dealer space. Today, advisors can choose from hundreds of RIA firms that all offer solid, yet different models to service clients. Fortunately, there are more and more resources coming online to help advisors do just that.”