Denver-based mega-RIA Mercer Advisors has bolstered its Atlanta office with a veteran advisor from Northern Trust.
The announced it has welcomed William Hinson, who has a 20-year track record in investment management and private wealth roles, most recently as a senior portfolio advisor at Northern Trust. He earlier served as a regional wealth portfolio manager at Truist.
The Atlanta team he joins now oversees $6.7 billion in client assets as of July 31,according to Mercer, making it one of the firm's largest regional offices. Chris Blackmon, Mercer's managing partner for Greater Georgia, said Hinson's background advising business owners, executives and multigenerational families made him a fit for the firm's existing client base in the market.
Hinson, a Georgia Tech computer science graduate, has built his practice around concentrated stock positions, liquidity-event planning for entrepreneurs, and retirement and multigenerational planning work. He said the appeal of Mercer's model was its integration of investment, tax and estate planning under one roof – a structure the firm has used to build its Georgia presence over several years.
Mercer's Georgia client assets grew from approximately $550 million in 2017 to over $4.5 billion by early 2025, a stretch that included its 2021 acquisitions of Kays Financial Advisory, an $800 million Atlanta-based RIA, and Atlanta Financial Associates.
Mercer added further scale in the market in January 2025 with its acquisition of Edward Vance Investment Management, a $41 million Atlanta-based financial planning firm.
Hybrid RIA &Partners announced it has added Bucholtz Germo, a Willoughby Hills, Ohio-based practice arriving with $352 million in prehire assets.
The team is the second former Commonwealth Financial Network practice to join &Partners in September alone, following its addition of SBS Retirement Consultants in Alaska, and marks the firm's 125th advisor practice since its 2023 founding.
Bucholtz Germo is led by founder and managing director David Bucholtz, along with cofounder and wealth advisor Michael Germo. The broader team includes financial advisors Isaac Bushen, James Tracz and Joe Suster, alongside wealth management associate Kelly Vinopal and three client-service staff.
The addition lands amid a sustained recruiting run for &Partners, which has now grown to roughly $63 billion in total assets as of September 1. Much of that growth has come from advisors exiting wirehouses and independent broker-dealer networks. Most recently last month, it added Crown Legacy Wealth, a Bellevue, Washington-based team managing $838 million in prehire assets, from Wells Fargo.
Wealthcare Advisory Partners, the West Chester, Pennsylvania-based RIA platform, said IAM Advisory has joined the firm, bringing eight advisors, five operations staff members and $550 million in assets under management.
The deal was structured as a revenue buy-down arrangement, allowing IAM Advisory to retain its brand and independence while gaining the backing of what Wealthcare now describes as a $10 billion RIA platform.
IAM Advisory, which is led by the father-and-daughter team of Joseph Parsons and Holly Parsons Jinks, takes a planning-first approach built around long-term client relationships.
Matt Regan, president of Wealthcare, said the addition reflects the value of the firm's multiple affiliation paths, which include hybrid and fee-only 1099 models, W-2 affiliation and acquisition options.
The IAM Advisory deal follows a period of steady expansion for Wealthcare, which became part of Sammons Financial Group following a June 2025 agreement to acquire the firm whose network at that time spanned more than 190 affiliated advisors and $8 billion in total assets under management.
In the year since, Wealthcare has continued expanding: the firm reported in late July that its advisor-driven models offering alone had surpassed $1.1 billion in assets under management with 60 advisors participating.
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