Merit grabs another former Commonwealth firm, adds $208 million practice in Pennsylvania expansion

Merit Financial has grabbed another former Commonwealth firm with the acquisition of Newtown, Pennsylvania-based GlennCo.

The deal for GlennCo, which has approximately $208 million in total assets, marks Merit’s fourth acquisition from Commonwealth. Merit recently expanded into the Detroit metropolitan area with the acquisition of former Commonwealth practice TL Financial Group and has also acquired Blueprint Wealth Advisors and Global Wealth Advisors from the broker dealer.

GlennCo’s owner and wealth manager Glenn Cohen will join Merit as a wealth manager, along with his entire team, according to a statement by the Georgia-based financial advisory firm. The deal was sourced through Merit regional directors and partners Ryan Evans and Nick Wilkins, who joined the firm through its acquisition of Blueprint Wealth Advisors last year.

“We’re just seeing more and more momentum as more firms come over,” Tyler Vernon, managing principal at Merit, told InvestmentNews. “We have more Commonwealth discussions going on now than we have had previously at any time in our history.”

“The pipeline continues to grow and we will see more announcements in the coming months,” he added.

The fallout from last year’s acquisition of Commonwealth by LPL Financial continues. A report released last month by AdvizorPro and Muriel Consulting said that 653 advisors have left Commonwealth since the LPL Financial deal was announced in March 2025.

The GlennCo acquisition expands Merit’s presence in Bucks County and also marks the company’s seventh office in Pennsylvania. Merit has had an office in the area since 2022 but is adding GlennCo’s much larger office of more than 9,000 square feet.

“This gives us the ability to consolidate an existing office within a larger Commonwealth office and bring more community to our people and more resources to our clients in a larger area,” said Vernon.

The proximity of GlennCo’s office to the New Jersey border is also important, according to the Merit managing principal. “Specifically, what we’re seeing from Merit’s perspective is that taxes are much more favorable in Pennsylvania than New Jersey,” he said. “It’s a very wealthy area and its population continues to grow, driven by an exodus of New Jersey taxpayers that don’t want to pay that tax anymore.”