$1.2B ex-Commonwealth team joins Merit to kickoff Chicago expansion

Serial RIA acquirer Merit Financial Advisors has bought Blueprint Wealth Advisors, a $1.2 billion advisor team that was previously with Commonwealth Financial Network. The deal gives Merit its first presence in Chicago, where Merit aims to grow into a $10 billion market within the firm.

Blueprint’s 23-person staff joining Merit includes co-founder Nick Wilkins and Ryan Evans, both are now regional directors and partners at Merit. In addition to the firm’s Chicago location, Blueprint has offices in Rockford, Illinois, and Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Blueprint is the second team to depart Commonwealth for Merit this year following the Texas-based $860 million Global Wealth Advisors (GWA) that Merit announced in August.

“For [Blueprint’s] Nick and Ryan, as well as one of the more recent partnerships that we did with Global Wealth, we're looking at the strong leadership of those teams for us to continue to help them grow organically, but also non organically through additional partnerships within those geographies,” Merit president Kay Lynn Mayhue told InvestmentNews. “There's going to be a lot of additional growth, we see Chicago being a $10 billion city within short order underneath their leadership and with Merit's support.”

Atlanta-based Merit Financial Advisors has over $20 billion in assets under management and has now acquired 52 firms after Blueprint Wealth’s move. Blueprint’s co-founders explained they planned on staying at Commonwealth if not for the firm’s sale this spring to LPL. In October, LPL said it has retained 80% of Commonwealth advisors while keeping its target of 90% retention.

“It wasn't something we were looking at to actually make a jump, but obviously the news of Commonwealth letting us know that they were selling to LPL back in April, it gave us the opportunity to take a timeout instead of just going with the flow,” said Wilkins. “It gave us the ability to really look out on the financial landscape and kind of see what else was out there. And honestly, we never would have done it without that announcement, because of our relationship, and we’ll always be grateful to Commonwealth.”

Constellation-backed Merit touts tax and estate planning, organic growth channel, marketing, custodial referral programs, and investment options for ultra-high-net-worth clients as additive services that Blueprint will gain. Merit’s also announced last week that it hired Alex Hansen, formerly SVP of RIA solutions at Commonwealth, to be its new chief advisor success officer. 

“I think all of the groups that we reviewed and looked at, Merit's culture and the way that they are growing is extremely exciting,” said Wilkins. “Making sure that our team and our clients were well taken care of in terms of just the next stages of our business, that to us was everything.”

The biggest beneficiary of Commonwealth advisors deflecting post-LPL sale has been Raymond James, which InvestmentNews reported last month has recruited Commonwealth teams totalling over $4 billion in assets. According to data shared with InvestmentNews from AdvizorPro, Kestra and Cambridge Investment Research rank second and third, respectively, behind Raymond James in recruiting advisors from Commonwealth.