RIA consolidators turn to syndicated loans as Mercer refinances $1.9B

Mercer Advisors, the Denver-based mega-RIA with $111 billion in client assets, has refinanced $1.9 billion of debt in its first move to the broadly syndicated loan market, which the firm expects will save $35 million to $40 million in interest in 2027 to fuel further business growth and acquisitions.

The deal replaces Mercer’s private debt with a seven-year term loan B and a five-year, $340 million revolving credit facility. Goldman Sachs led the transaction, which Mercer said was meaningfully oversubscribed. The new loan carries an interest rate 1.75 percentage points lower than its predecessor, according to the firm.

S&P Global Ratings, which rated Mercer B with a stable outlook in September 2026, said the package includes a $1.65 billion term loan and a $250 million delayed draw term loan.

“Mercer Advisors and the business that we’re building, we’re now really truly institutional size enterprise strength, and I think going to the public markets for debt is a natural stepping stone for us in that growth,” Dave Welling, Mercer’s CEO, told InvestmentNews. “You need to be large enough, and you also need to have the business quality metrics of organic growth, the predictability and stability of that organic growth to take this kind of step. The public markets are very discerning."

How rival RIA platforms are financing deals

Mercer is the latest large RIA to lean on debt. In September 2025, EP Wealth Advisors took out a $400 million seven-year term loan and a $100 million revolver to pay down debt and finance acquisitions. In 2025, Merit Financial Advisors secured a larger credit line on better terms, negotiated with help from minority investor Constellation Wealth Partners. Citywire reported on Oct. 15 that $74 billion RIA Beacon Pointe closed a $1.2 billion debt raise and earmarked $80 million for M&A.

“A number of our peers have taken this step as well. Our business results compares very favorably to that immediate peer group, so it’s also a very interesting time in the independent RIA community, where if you go back 10 years ago there were very few if any platforms of significant scale who could access the public markets, whether they were the credit markets or whether they were the equity markets, and now you have the emergence of multiple platforms that are of significant scale,” Welling said. He added that Mercer has grown by an average of more than 30% per year. 

Borrowers are trading private credit for bank loans, with $19.5 billion of private debt refinanced into the syndicated market in 2026 versus $9.2 billion moving the other way, Bloomberg reported in September, citing JPMorgan and KBRA DLD data.

The deals come as RIA M&A volume dropped 17% in the third quarter, according to DeVoe & Company, while consolidators handled 53% of deals through September 2026. S&P expects Mercer’s adjusted debt-to-EBITDA to exceed 7x at closing before easing to between 6x and 7x through 2027. The agency said Mercer’s private equity owners – Altas Partners, Genstar Capital, Oak Hill Capital and GIC – will likely keep a high tolerance for leverage as acquisitions continue.

M&A comes third in Mercer’s capital plan

Cheaper debt gives Mercer more room to buy, but Welling said acquisitions rank behind the RIA's plans to support client services and organic growth. Mercer is adding over $1 billion a month in new client assets and has hired close to 400 people in 2026,  and the RIA is "dramatically expanding" its estate planning and tax team, said Welling.

“Serving clients, adding the next new client are really the first two steps in the financial health, and then we get to M&A. So M&A after that very strictly comes third in that order of operations,” Welling said. “There’s other platforms that do M&A first and then try and have to figure out some things later, we don’t think that’s a responsible use of capital or in line with our vision.”

Mercer completed 18 acquisitions in 2025 and expects a similar total by the end of 2026, Welling said. He added that 15 of the 2025 deals are growing faster than before joining. This year’s mix tilts toward tax-only firms and expanded family office businesses that Mercer seeks through M&A.

"I think what you'll see this year that is a little different than history is there's more tax firms in the mix. Tax-only firms—that's been an area of discipline," said Welling. "We have some expanded family office services businesses joining us that provide family governance support."