Elevation Point expands Goldman Sachs tie-up to broaden services for partner RIAs

Elevation Point is bolstering its appeal to growth-focused RIAs through a newly expanded collaboration with Goldman Sachs.

Under the updated alliance announced Tuesday, the Minneapolis-based growth partner – whose client asset network now represents a repored $8.2 billion as of June 30 – said its partner RIA teams will have access to Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions as well as a range of banking, lending, trading and capital-markets capabilities. 

Goldman Sachs will serve as a primary provider of lending, direct indexing, open-architecture custom models and fixed-income separately managed accounts for Elevation Point’s network, while GSCS will serve a key custodian for the firm. 

Jim Dickson, Elevation Point’s founding partner and CEO, emphasized the firm’s mission to back top independent advisors and to “build a strategic ecosystem that empowers them to serve clients with freedom, flexibility, and scale.” 

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs executives framed the tie-up as an extension of an existing custody relationship, as well as its broader effort to help firms within the RIA channel.

Jeremy Eisenstein, head of RIA custody within Goldman Sachs’ global banking and markets division, described Elevation Point as “one of the most dynamic and innovative firms in the RIA industry,” while highlighting both firms' investments in custody infrastructure and transition teams to streamline onboarding. 

Onboarding and asset transfers emerged as a major pain point in recent research by F2 Strategy, which examined the tradeoffs wealth firms faced along the spectrum of multi-custodian, single-custodian, and self-clearing models. 

While two-thirds of the firms F2 surveyed had multiple custodians, it found that preference was driven by a fear of disrupting clients during a transfer. The downside of that decision, F2 found, was a sense of weariness among advisors faced with more complex workflows and reporting compared to single-custodian and self-clearing models.

The expanded relationship with Goldman follows a string of minority investments Elevation Point has made in breakaway teams this year, as the firm seeks to scale its platform of capital, technology and operational support while allowing advisors to retain independence. In July, Elevation Point invested in Waycrest Wealth, a Michigan-based team overseeing about $1 billion in client assets, and in June it announced backing for Family Office Partners, a team of UBS breakaways in Lafayette, Louisiana supervising about $2.5 billion.  

Elevation Point's strategy got a boost in May when it revealed a fresh investment from Emigrant Partners, the subsidiary of Emigrant Bank and Milstein Companies, a fourth-generation family-owned entity. At the time, Dickson said that the backing by the Milstein family represents its continued commitment to focusing on family offices as strategic capital partners rather than private equity.

"Our partners and the families that represent us, they want us thinking 10 to 20 years out, and I think that fits better to what we're doing," Dickson told InvestmentNews at the time. "Doesn't mean that one of our investments won't sell before that, if that's what's right, and that's what's ready for them, but they don't have to. It allows the advisor to stay in control, and not the private equity firm in control."

The expanded collaboration also helps Goldman Sachs gain ground in a competitive field of custodian and services providers, which wealth-platform firms have been integrating to offer advisors more institutional capabilities without requiring acquisitions or full sell-offs.

In May, GSCS officially became a preferred custodian for Dynasty Financial Partners, the giant Florida-based RIA platform that likewise emphasizes custody, TAMP integration, and dedicated transition support as well as technological infrastructure for its partner advisors and firms.