Arax Advisory Partners has acquired breakaway Wells Fargo advisory team The Oak Group, becoming the second Hudson Valley-based team bought by Arax this year.
The Oak Group manages nearly $1.5 billion and is based in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is also where Arax acquired Omni Financial Advisory Group in March. Arax Advisory Partners, which is backed by private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, has now added five firms this year to extend its footprint across 15 states and $43 billion in assets under management.
“The opportunity in the Hudson Valley is very significant. It's oftentimes an overlooked and under-appreciated market, but there's a meaningful population there that's in need of wealth management advisory services. So we think our growth opportunity there is significant,” said Arax founder and CEO Haig Ariyan. “There is meaningful generational wealth in the Hudson Valley for sure, but that exists throughout the tri state area.”
Ryan Peek and Gary Ben-Ezra lead The Oak Group, which was founded in 2003 and will have eight advisors and three support staff join Arax Advisory Partners. Adding advisors from wirehouses and large regional banks or broker-dealers has been a recruiting focus for Ariyan, who was president of the Raymond James-owned investment bank Alex Brown before he founded Arax Investment Partners in 2022..
“The independent wealth firms are going to be under more and more pressure to make sure that the client experience is being felt as differentiated from the wirehouse or bank-owned wealth manager solution that so many financial advisors have decided to separate themselves from,” Ariyan told InvestmentNews. “It's very tangible for clients to feel the difference working with a partner than working with an owner, and that's something that I've known for many years, and saw as I worked in bank-owned wealth managers and national platforms. To see the difference of the client experience culturally on the independent side was always very tangible.”
To differentiate the client experience, Ariyan says Arax advisors are equipped with planning resources, balance sheet expertise resources, and investment platform flexibility. Arax Investment Partners has three separate RIA platforms— Ashton Thomas Private Wealth for advisors looking to become W-2 employees, Arax Advisory Partners for advisors seeking a partnership affiliate model, and US Capital Wealth that prioritizes the Texas wealth market.
“We are seeing a lot of interest in our W-2 partnership affiliation with financial advisors. But at the same time, our 1099 capabilities for supported independence is starting to be a very competitive solution in the marketplace,” said Ariyan. “So although our business today, the W-2 partner side is growing more rapidly, by no means are we seeing a slowdown in the 1099 supported independence model, where we continue to see talent lifting out and seeking that fully independent solution.”
Arax Advisory Partners was recently ranked No. 1 on USA Today’s list of the top 1,000 RIAs for 2026.
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