OnePoint BFG eyes $25 billion AUM target after Chicago deal

OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners has made its largest acquisition to date with its purchase of Spahn Financial Partners, a $2 billion Chicago-based advisory practice that was affiliated with Northwestern Mutual. The deal pushes OnePoint to $15 billion AUM and its CEO Andy Schwartz expects to reach about $25 billion in assets over the next 18 months.

OnePoint, formally known as Bleakley Financial Group, managed roughly $10 billion at the time of its minority investment from Joe Duran’s Rise Growth Partners in August 2024. All 17 Spahn Financial employees will transition to OneTeam. Founder Kevin Spahn and his partners Timothy Funke, Kyle DeRaedt and Nirav Patel are now all equity partners at OnePoint, which has over 200 employees. 

“We're at 10% organic growth so far this year, and that's going to be our goal going forward,” Schwartz told InvestmentNews. “But I would imagine we should be at 25-ish [billion AUM] in the next 18 months. We'll need some market cooperation, obviously.”

Spahn marks the first Chicago presence for OnePoint, which is based in New Jersey with other key footprints in Boston and Atlanta. Schwartz aims for OnePoint to have “a big national presence over the next 24 months” and says his goal is for OnePoint to add $5 billion in inorganic growth next year via acquisitions of around six firms expected for 2026.

“We're looking at groups between $400 million and $2 billion, could be $3 billion. Joe [Duran] keeps telling me, stop talking to these really, really big groups, let's just find some nice $500 million groups that we can tuck-in and make it a little bit easier for ourselves,” said Schwartz, whose OnePoint RIA now spans 22 equity partners after its deal for Spahn.

Schwartz says OnePoint is “not an aggregator, we're a firm,” as its leadership touts its commitment to organic growth as a distinguishing factor from the large roll-up RIAs. InvestmentNews recently reported a story on industry sources who pegged low organic growth as a reason for private equity owners behind the $308 billion mega-RIA Edelman Financial Engines ending their sale process after not fetching desired valuations on the open market.

“When you look at a lot of the big mega firms, organic growth is left really wanting, and that's because they're doing acquisitions for acquisition's sake, they're not as focused on making sure the underlying firm is benefiting from joining that enterprise,” Duran told InvestmentNews. “You see some of these firms that are failing to raise capital, the common thread is there's no organic growth.”

Duran, the former United Capital CEO before selling that RIA to Goldman Sachs, announced Rise Growth’s minority investment last week in Krilogy, a $4 billion RIA in St. Louis. Rise, a minority investor, maintains Grimes & Company as the third RIA in its portfolio. OnePoint’s national expansion includes plans for six to eight regional hubs, said Schwartz. 

“Ultimately, what happens with a lot of these mega firms is it becomes all about the economics and getting to the next recap three years from now,” said Duran. “I don't think Andy [Schwartz] would have ever taken our money if that was how we thought, and frankly we would never invest in anyone if that's how they thought.”