Hot on the heels of its Atlanta debut, MAI Capital Management is continuing its strategy of inorganic expansion with a deal to acquire a fee-only RIA in California.
MAI announced that it has acquired OG Private Wealth, a fee-only RIA based in Chico and Hermosa Beach, California, adding roughly $551 million in assets under management and more than 300 household to its platform.
OG Private Wealth was founded by brothers Ryan O'Donnell and Mike O'Donnell, who were affiliated with Merrill Lynch and Raymond James earlier in their careers before establishing their own practice, the O'Donnell Group, in 2012.
The two built their practice around entrepreneurs, business owners and affluent families, pairing investment management with integrated planning for cash flow, estate matters, pre-sale strategy and taxes, the statement said. Its client base spans Northern California, Los Angeles and Miami.
MAI Chairman and CEO Rick Buoncore said the O'Donnells' business is "deeply rooted in trust," pointing to the firm's work with clients who have complex wealth needs.
Ryan O'Donnell said the firm wanted more resources without giving up its culture, noting that joining MAI provides access to "robust institutional investment capabilities, family office resources and specialized expertise" for clients going forward.
Mike O'Donnell said the partnership lets the firm keep its founding principles while scaling, adding the O'Donnells now have backing to serve clients "with more confidence than ever."Th
MAI's announcement also called out a longstanding relationship between the brothers and its leadership team, which was bolstered by MAI's acquisition of Evoke Advisors last year.
The OG Private Wealth transaction is MAI's latest in a run of more than 20 deals since January 2024. It follows MAI's recent push into Atlanta with the Waypoint Wealth deal, a roughly $490 million acquisition that gave MAI entry into a market Buoncore described as "strategically important."
Before that came the addition of a Dallas-based, veteran-founded RIA to MAI's Evoke platform in June and the acquisition of Connecticut's Saybrook Wealth Group the same month.
The dealmaking pace has accelerated since Carlyle Group's investment in MAI Capital Management this spring, which valued the firm at more than $2.8 billion and gave the private equity firm its first controlling stake in a wealth management business.
Buoncore has said he expects the Carlyle capital to fund further expansion in markets including Texas, Denver, Chicago and Boston. As of April 30, MAI and its affiliated advisors managed approximately $77.3 billion in total client assets.
The deal comes as California's Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on billionaires' net worth headed for the November 3 ballot, draws warnings from policy experts and prominent investors alike.
In an analysis published last week, Tax Foundation senior fellow Jared Walczak wrote that the measure faces numerous constitutional challenges, including its retroactive residency date and an apportionment structure he said taxes 100% of a former resident's wealth even after they leave the state. Those issues, he said, could push courts to strike the tax down entirely rather than modify it.
The proposal has also become a flashpoint outside the courtroom. Over the weekend, billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban engaged in a war of words with Democratic House Representative Ro Khanna over the measure, warning that founders who are "cash poor, stock rich" could be forced to leave the state, according to Fox Business.
In a video posted on social media, Khanna, who has defended the tax as a way to protect health care funding, proposed allowing illiquid founders to pledge shares as collateral for a state loan. Cuban rejected the idea, arguing that it would generate no additional cash revenue from those taxpayers.
"What's the point of that?" he said, adding that California the state could end up owning shares in private companies if the founders who borrowed against those stakes could not repay their loans. "You don't understand business Ro."
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