Beacon Pointe buys $637M ACT Wealth in bet on airline pilot clients

Beacon Pointe Advisors has acquired ACT Wealth Management, a $637 million firm that specializes in airline pilots and their families.

The Newport Beach, California-based registered investment advisor said Tuesday that the deal closed Oct. 31. It lifts Beacon Pointe’s total assets under advisement to approximately $71 billion. Dan Archer, Brennan Cross and Ray Tanner founded ACT in 2010, and the firm has offices in Allen, Texas, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

ACT’s principals have worked with airline pilots, crew members and their families since 1996, well before the firm formally launched. Their work focuses on decisions specific to the profession, including weighing airline retirement benefits, choosing between early and traditional retirement, and timing distributions, required minimum distributions and Roth IRA conversions.

“ACT brings experience with a client community whose retirement decisions require a close understanding of both employer benefits and broader family priorities,” said Beacon Pointe CEO Matt Cooper.

“What drew us to Beacon Pointe was its ability to grow with our clients,” said Archer, a partner and managing director.

Read more: The sky's the limit for an adviser dedicated to working with airline pilots

Cross, also a partner and managing director, said the two firms had known each other for a long time. “I would personally say that Beacon Pointe just feels like home to us after knowing Matt [Cooper] and keeping up with the firm’s success for over 15 years now,” he said.

ACT’s clients will move onto Beacon Pointe’s allWEALTH planning framework.

In February, Beacon Pointe named Matt Cooper CEO as co-founder Shannon Eusey moved to board chair. Cooper had been president for 15 years. More recently in September, the firm tapped BlackRock and Vanguard veterans for new C-suite roles, welcoming Katie Cullen as chief growth officer and Sarah Green as chief risk and compliance officer.

Fidelity counted eight Beacon Pointe acquisitions in the first half of 2026, making it the second-most active dealmaker by Fidelity's tracking behind Savant Wealth Management, which logged nine. 

Read more: Acquired RIA assets nearly doubled in 2026, Fidelity finds

Last month, Beacon Pointe disclosed three more deals that added $1.35 billion: WorthPointe Financial Planners, Silver Lake Capital Partners and R Meier Wealth Management.

With its specialist focus and its size by AUM, ACT falls within the type of RIA target most desirable to larger acquirers, according to the 2026 RIA Deal Room report from Advisor Growth Strategies, which found that firms with $500 million to $5 billion in assets – which AGS defined as the middle market – are being squeezed. Based on an analysis of Cerulli data, the AGS report found the share of RIA channel assets held by these firms fell from 42% in 2019 to 31% in 2024. Over the same period, firms above $5 billion grew their share to 54%. 

"[W]hile firms with $500M-$5B in AUM grew headcount during the same period, it is safe to assume that the middle of the market ($500M-$5B AUM) is the favored hunting ground for larger platforms," the AGS report said.

"Moving forward, the middle market is a target-rich environment for buyers that have achieved some scale, and operators will face increasing complexity as they navigate organic growth, hiring and recruiting talent, and technology evolution in this rapidly changing environment," it said.