Mercer Advisors has surpassed the $100 billion client assets milestone and the Denver-based registered investment advisor says it’s down to more than an appetite for deals.
The firm now oversees approximately $110 billion on behalf of more than 42,000 families across the US, with the pace of recent accumulation particularly striking. It took Mercer more than 30 years to reach its first $10 billion in client assets. It added more than that figure in the past 12 months alone.
CEO Dave Welling and president Daniel Gourvitch told InvestmentNews that the trajectory is being driven by families actively choosing the firm rather than by acquisition volume.
"Our industry-leading organic growth is driven by more and more families choosing to build their family office with our teams,” said Gourvitch. “The 42,000+ clients in the Mercer Advisors community today reflect a small percentage of the tens of millions of American families who we believe would benefit from our distinctive approach to providing a boutique, fiduciary family office."
Founded in 1985 by tax and estate attorney Kendrick Mercer, the firm was among the earliest fee-based fiduciaries in the country. That heritage continues to shape how it approaches expansion.
Rather than operating as an aggregator, Mercer Advisors has pursued an integrator model, bringing partner firms fully into its operational and cultural structure rather than leaving them as standalone entities.
Over the past decade, the firm has completed 117 such integrations, accepting fewer than 10% of firms that indicate interest in joining.
"Every colleague at Mercer Advisors shares a belief that the client always comes first, including ahead of our own individual interests. That allows us to partner continuously, leading to better teamwork and, ultimately, better client outcomes," Gourvitch said. "We hold every new partner to the standard of 'Would I want this person as my advisor?' and 'Would I want this person as my partner?' That has always been a high bar, and each year we accept fewer than 10% of firms that indicate interest in joining us."
In 2025, its busiest acquisition year on record, Mercer brought in 18 new partner firms, entering markets including Oklahoma City and Greater Boston while adding capabilities in areas such as business management and tax services.
The question of whether scale and personalization can coexist sits at the heart of Mercer's argument about its own model. Gourvitch said the answer lies in how local teams are structured and empowered. "At our core, we are a boutique that delivers personalized service to each of our clients. Our goal is to make every family feel like our only client. The key to boutique delivery is empowering local teams to make common-sense decisions for their clients. On average, each of our 40 markets consists of a team of ~25-30 professionals who collectively serve ~1,000 clients in their community and manage $2-3 billion of their wealth."
The firm now employs more than 1,600 professionals nationwide, including approximately 1,100 client-facing team members and more than 420 wealth advisors supported by financial planners and specialists in tax, estate planning, investment management, insurance and trust administration.
More than 200 professionals sit within the tax and estate function alone, supported by an investment team of more than 125.
In the first quarter of 2026, more than 1,000 families chose Mercer Advisors as their family office, a figure the firm cites as evidence of strong organic momentum.
Chief executive Dave Welling told InvestmentNews that the competitive environment has sharpened, but that Mercer's response has been to double down on reinvestment rather than cut corners.
"The wealth management industry has never been more competitive, and our offering has never been more differentiated. We are attracting a record number of clients, particularly UHNW clients,” he said. “We are differentiated by two things: a culture that puts client well-being above the needs of any individual team member, and a commitment to consistently reinvest the benefits of growth back in deeper capabilities that directly benefit our clients and our team.”
To serve clients across different wealth levels, Mercer formalized four service tiers in 2024 and 2025: Regis, Ascend, Custom Wealth and Wealth Path. Welling was pointed about the philosophy behind the segmentation.
"The key to our segmentation approach is having advisors who focus on serving each client group. There are no 'B or C level' clients at Mercer Advisors. We believe it's critical for each client, regardless of their assets, to have a team of advisors who treat them like their most important client," he said.
More than half of all Mercer employees now hold equity stakes in the business. The firm promoted more than 350 employees in each of the past two years, with 15% of financial planners advancing to wealth manager roles in the past year.
Gourvitch said the ownership model reshapes how decisions are made internally.
"When more than half your employees are equity owners, people make decisions with the long-term health of the firm in mind, because they're owners, not just employees,” he said. “We are attracting top talent, people who could choose to work at many places, who choose Mercer Advisors because they see a mission-focused firm focused on what's best for clients. They see an organization that is growing and see that they will have opportunities to grow with it."
Looking ahead, Welling said the firm expects organic growth to outpace M&A, with the firm's breadth of capability serving as the key differentiator.
"Our focus on clients with complex needs and our capability to bring together the different parts of our clients' financial lives including planning, investments, tax, estate, insurance, and other services is a differentiator."
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