Financial advisors are wealthier than ever, but are they happier?

Groucho Marx reportedly quipped: “While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”  

Sounds like he could have been talking about financial advisors, particularly those in the later stages of careers in their late 50s or 60s, and how they feel about their careers.  

Or, to mangle a lyric from punk rockers The Clash, Should I stay (at my firm) or should I go?  

For the past ten to 15 years, advisors have had the wind at their back and seen record highs in stocks, which created all-time highs for client assets, which has led to record valuations of their firms or books of business, the wellspring of their personal wealth.  

The money is a very real and important part of the financial advice industry, although advisors and executives are loathe to speak publicly about their good fortune for fear of drawing too much attention and scrutiny as well as putting a target on their backs by appearing boastful.  

According to one leading independent broker-dealer and registered investment advisor firm, who spoke privately to InvestmentNews, the value of advisors practices has – in general – risen in the past five to 10 years. Advisors reaching agreements to sell all or a portion of their firm have seen valuation increase by at least 25% since 2020.  

And advisors’ practices are larger than ever. The same broker-dealer network reported an average acquisition size per advisor practice in 2025 of $70 million in client assets. That was meaningfully larger than advisors’ practice just six years ago.  

Compared to two decades ago, an RIA with $1 billion in client assets is worth twice as much, said David DeVoe, CEO of his eponymous wealth management consulting firm that focuses on RIAs.  

Twenty years ago, a firm with those kinds of assets would have been valued at eight times EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a cash flow metric, DeVoe said. Now, firms have valuation in the high teens and – from time to time – even in the low twenties.  

“The happiest advisors change their job profile and hang up the CIO or CEO title,” DeVoe said. “They change dramatically what they’re doing.”  

For some, that brings to mind Ron “Omani” Carson, a former top broker and advisor who was known as a salesman’s salesman for decades throughout the industry.  

Carson was so good at selling that one of the businesses he controlled coached other advisors on how to be better salespeople.  

In 2021, InvestmentNews reported that Carson Group had a valuation of more than $1 billion after an investment from Bain Capital.  

Then, with his career in twilight and his firm maturing, Carson abandoned wealth management to become a new age shaman of sorts, promoting spiritualism and retreats.  

“I used to make fun of what I would call tree huggers and now I've become one,” Carson posted recently on LinkedIn. “I have become a conservationist and will do all I can to protect this beautiful planet for future generations.”  

READ MORE: Carson Group founder changes his name to Omani

Happiness for many financial advisors, at least as it relates to their work life, is tied directly the outcome of how they handle the sale or transition of their practice or business, according to interviews with advisors, consultants, bankers and academics.  

Indeed, it’s too easy to screw up selling a firm, wasting an opportunity of a lifetime.  

“Advisors read in the trade press the multiple for mergers and acquisitions of RIAs and practices and the record number of deals, and sometimes they get carried away with greed,” said one veteran financial advisor who spoke privately to InvestmentNews about the matter.  

“They don’t understand a realistic multiple or price for their firm,” the advisor said. “They’ve comparing themselves to the valuation that a $20 billion RIA got from a private equity firm. Too frequently, advisors go for the highest dollar amount and don’t look under the hood of the buyer.”  

“What they should be asking is, does this deal create a match in values,” the advisor said. “Do you know this person?”  

Of course, every one of the roughly 300,000 licensed financial advisors and brokers has a story about a deeply unhappy colleague.  

The industry is replete with stories of a partner who steals a longtime colleague’s clients, or an advisor who buckles under the pressure of falling markets, like those during the 2008 credit crisis, and leaves the industry shaken and is never heard from again.   

“And once they’ve decided to sell, financial advisors will change their minds and back out,” the advisor said. “They realize that their identity and self-worth – either all or a good portion of it – is tied to what they do. Without work, there’s no more sense of recognition or accomplishment. They’re scared of jumping into a void.”  

And an advisor striking a bad deal for his or her firm can lead to far from happy results.  

For example, a financial advisor’s lawsuit from February claimed that Mariner, one of the most prolific buyers of registered investment advisors for more than a decade, allegedly defrauded the advisor out of his book of business in the months after buying his firm in 2025.  

The advisor, James Hyre, alleged that Mariner “willfully and maliciously misappropriated the book of business through its knowing, intentional, fraudulent, and, or tortious conduct,” according to the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Kansas. 

James Hyre and his firm, Hyre Personal Wealth Advisors, are seeking damages and suing Mariner for breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and other claims. The lawsuit is ongoing.  

If an advisor sells to a private equity investor, that investor will seek to maximize the value of the firm, advisors and executives noted. That means change, which could be unwelcome or alienating, as outside buyers will change a firm to fit their model.  

“The happiest advisors who sell their firms or books of business aren’t the ones that took highest valuation but the ones that took the deal that’s best in total, meaning for them, their staff and their clients,” said another senior industry executive who spoke privately to InvestmentNews about the matter. “Those advisors who take those kinds of deals, even at a discount, are simply more content.”