RIA M&A off to a ‘record start’ in 2026, says DeVoe, as sellers go upmarket

RIA mergers and acquisitions are coming thick and fast this year, boosted by a changing seller dynamic that is shifting upmarket, according to the latest DeVoe & Company RIA M&A Deal Book.

After a record-setting 322 M&A transactions last year, 2026 is off to a blistering pace, with 93 deals announced in the first quarter, easily surpassing the 75 deals in the same period last year. DeVoe also notes that the first quarter of 2026 also ties the third quarter of 2025 as the most active quarter on record.

“With RIA M&A activity up 24% year-over-year, the market is already off to its fastest start ever,” said DeVoe, in the report, highlighting several noteworthy developments. “Buyers entered 2026 with significant dry powder, while sellers continue to come to market in greater numbers,” it added.

Merit Financial is among the firms that have been particularly busy in recent months, snapping up former Commonwealth practices GlennCo and TL Financial Group.

In January mega-RIA Mariner grabbed Alinity Wealth Management from Northwestern Mutual, and more recently, added two multigenerational teams in Missouri and Maryland.

In its report, DeVoe sees the RIA seller market as shifting upmarket, with larger firms representing an increasing share of transaction activity. “This concentration at the top reflects a change in what sellers bring to market, as firms with greater scale, infrastructure, and growth profiles attract demand from well-capitalized buyers,” it said.

A decline in small sellers has been unfolding for several years now, according to DeVoe, which says that, in 2023, firms with between $100 million and $500 million in assets under management represented roughly 50% of transactions. By the first quarter of this year, however, those firms accounted for just 32% of transactions.

In contrast, mid-sized, large, and mega RIAs are coming to market at a faster pace, driven by strong buyer demand at the upper end. “Because of this, larger transactions are capturing a greater share of overall activity,” DeVoe said.

There are a number of forces shaping the decision to sell, according to DeVoe, which cites growth, scale, liquidity and access to resources as powerful motivators. For smaller sellers, however, the challenge of succession is growing across the industry, DeVoe says. “For a growing number of RIAs, internal succession has become difficult to execute,” it added. “Unlike multi-billion-dollar firms, which nearly universally have to sell externally, smaller firms operate in a narrower window where the next generation can—or could have— afford to buy out the founders.”

Succession has been repeatedly cited as a looming crisis for the advisory industry, with is confronted with aging leadership and challenging economics.