Accelerated Wealth Partners eyes 5 or 6 RIA investments: 'Not trying to be Focus 2.0'

Private equity firm J.C. Flowers has committed to invest up to $200 million in Accelerated Wealth Partners (AWP), a new RIA investment startup founded by former Focus Financial Partners executive Eric Amar.

Amar, who was chief growth officer at the major RIA aggregator until departing in early 2024, told InvestmentNews that he’s eyed a pipeline of about five or six RIAs to join AWP’s portfolio. Amar says Accelerated Wealth Partners wants to be seen as a “growth equity investor” for both minority and majority stakes with RIAs between $1 billion to $4 billion assets under management as likely targets. 

“We like firms that are more regional by DNA, which is [for example] we are the best firm in Texas and we're going to be a leader in the Texas market. Or we like firms that are very niche—we are the best firm for tech employees [for example] or for first responders, and we're going to build a national brand around that niche,” said Amar.

“I don't want to be flagged as a minority investor. We don't care if it's minority or majority. What matters to us the most is the quality of the business, the quality of the team and alignment on what they want to accomplish,” he added. “They want to build organic growth systems at scale, they want to do M&A to make the firm better, not just bigger. That's us.”

The website for J.C. Flowers shows its portfolio spans investments across banking, insurance, and fintech, as well as the Miami-based wealth management firm Insigneo. Amar described a “hands-on” approach AWP will take in its investments, providing RIAs with resources to support their marketing, technology, M&A, organic growth, and other operations.

Firms that specialize in providing outside capital to RIAs include Emigrant Partners, Constellation Wealth, Wealth Partners Capital Group, Merchant, and Rise Growth Partners. Emigrant has about 20 firms within its portfolio while Constellation has minority investments in 15 RIAs. Amar wants Accelerated Wealth Partners to operate on a smaller portfolio scale.

“I'm not trying to be Focus 2.0 and have 100 different businesses underneath our platforms. Because I don't think you can deliver value when you have more than [about] 10 [portfolio firms] because then you're just busy finding the next one and the next one,” said Amar. “I'd rather help five firms grow from $2 billion to $10 billion than help 30 firms just hover along."