Mega-RIAs accelerate into institutional assets with Cerity-Verus merger

Cerity Partners is expanding into institutional consulting through a merger with Verus Investments, marking the latest move by a large registered investment advisor to broaden beyond traditional wealth management.

Seattle-based Verus advises on roughly $1.2 trillion in assets for government entities, public pension plans, nonprofits, multi-employer trusts, and corporate clients. The firm will now operate under the Cerity Partners brand, significantly expanding the New York-based RIA’s presence among large asset owners and institutional investors.

Cerity Partners, founded in 2009, manages about $150 billion in client assets. Private equity firm Genstar Capital is a lead investor in Cerity, which began 2026 with moves to buy RIAs SOL Capital Management and Austin Private Wealth. On merging with Verus, Cerity Partners CEO Kurt Miscinski said in a statement that the deal "meaningfully expands our leadership in the institutional space and strengthens our ability to serve clients of all sizes, complexities, and delegation preferences.”

The combination reflects a broader push by mega-RIAs — many backed by private equity — to build platforms that serve both individual wealth clients and large institutions. Institutional consulting can provide stable, long-duration revenue with pension sponsors, endowments, and corporate plan decision-makers, while also creating potential connections to executives and family wealth tied to those organizations.

Verus CEO Jeffrey MacLean, who has spent more than 30 years advising corporate defined benefit plans, public institutions, multi-employer trusts, endowments, and foundations, framed the merger as part of a wider convergence between the wealth and institutional markets.

“As the wealth and institutional industries converge, this merger positions Cerity Partners at the forefront of the future of fiduciary advice, providing fully integrated support for institutions and the leaders who guide them,” MacLean wrote in an open letter to his asset manager industry colleagues.

The institutional expansion builds on Cerity’s broader effort to serve clients across the wealth spectrum, including ultra-high-net-worth families. In 2023, the firm merged with New York-based AJ Wealth, a family office RIA founded in 2012 by Andrew Cooper and Justyn Volesko, former colleagues in Goldman Sachs Ayco’s family office unit. Cerity's family office division now includes about 60 employees and manages roughly $8.5 billion for about 100 families. Cooper said the independent RIA structure provides greater transparency than traditional bank-based wealth models.

“As an RIA, we're fiduciary to our clients. The only people that can pay us are our clients,” said Cooper. “Banks don't have that same rule, and so there's a little bit of opaque grayness on like, if you say I think you should go into this investment, are you saying it because you think it's the best investment or are you saying it because someone on the back end is paying you for it?”

Cerity’s move into institutional consulting reflects a broader push by large RIAs into retirement and institutional asset advisory. In 2024, Hightower became the majority owner of institutional consulting firm NEPC and Mariner Wealth Advisors purchased AndCo Consulting to form Mariner Institutional. Last year saw Creative Planning acquire retirement plan advisory firm SageView while Cresset combined with Monticello Associates. 

"We want to get much stronger in the institutional space, which is foundations, endowments, things like that. I view that very much like the retirement space, where you're seeing more and more institutions gravitate to the same smaller group of consultants," Creative Planning CEO Peter Mallouk told InvestmentNews in a December 2025 interview. "In the retirement space, we think that's going to become a winner-take-all market. My belief is you're going to see a few firms that are left as record keepers. There's over 100 record keepers, I think there's going to wind up being a dozen or less."