RWA Wealth partners, Merit Financial, and Concurrent all made progress on their acquisition strategies this week, with RWA striking its first deal since its formative merger two years ago and Merit strengthening its presence in Texas through its forty-first acquisition.
RWA Wealth Partners has broadened its reach on the West Coast through the acquisition of Moirai Wealth Management, a San Francisco-based RIA overseeing $344 million in assets.
The deal, finalized August 15, brings RWA’s California headcount to 14 and adds a four-person team led by Moirai founder Karen Schmid. RWA, which manages $18 billion in client assets, is also planning to open a new office in downtown San Francisco later this year.
This latest move marks a comeback of sorts to inorganic growth for RWA. It originated from a 2023 merger between Ropes Wealth Advisors and Adviser Investments, which later rebranded as RWA Wealth Partners. That merger created a combined entity with more than $15 billion in client assets and expanded the firm’s national footprint and family office capabilities.
Michelle Knight, CEO of RWA Wealth Partners, said in a statement that she and Schmid “are both aligned strongly in our values and in our dedication to providing a high-touch client experience.” Knight added that acquisitions like Moirai are “a key part of our growth strategy as we continue to build RWA into one of the consequential boutique wealth management firms in the country.”
Schmid, who founded Moirai in 2000, said the partnership will allow her team to “expand our expertise in investment management, tax, and trust and estate planning, while collaborating with an exceptional team.”
Merit Financial Advisors has acquired Global Wealth Advisors, a Texas-based firm with $860 million in client assets, marking Merit’s forty-first acquisition in four and a half years.
The addition brings new offices in Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania, and expands Merit’s Texas presence to seven locations.
GWA’s president, Kris Maksimovich, and managing partner, Chris Powers, will join Merit as regional directors and partners, along with a team of 14 advisors and client support staff.
The deal comes on the heels of Merit’s acquisition of Second Half Financial Partners earlier this month, which added $225 million in assets and marked the firm’s fifth office in Florida. Before that, it landed its thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth partnerships in quick succession with Olympic Wealth Management in Bothell, Washington, and AMP Wealth Management in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin.
In recent years, Merit has also acquired Zimmerman Investment Management & Planning in Pennsylvania, Roth Asset Management in Oregon, and Trinity Financial Partners in Pennsylvania, as well as firms in Connecticut and Wisconsin.
In a statement, Kay Lynn Mayhue, president of Merit, said the partnership with GWA is “especially meaningful,” noting that she and Maksimovich started their careers together more than 25 years ago.
Maksimovich said that the move was prompted by changes at their broker-dealer and that joining Merit will help the team “maintain our personalized approach while expanding our presence in Texas.”
Merit now manages nearly $20 billion in assets and operates more than 40 offices nationwide.
Elsewhere, Concurrent Asset Management announced it has entered a strategic partnership with Catherine Avery Investment Management, an independent investment management firm.
CAIM specializes in managing portfolio management strategies for women and retirees, according to its website, putting dividend-paying equities in the core while emphasizing long-term fundamentals and keeping aware of risks.
The partnership, announced Tuesday, is part of Concurrent’s ongoing effort to expand its network of independent RIAs and enhance its portfolio management and research capabilities.
Concurrent, which transitioned to an independent hybrid RIA structure in 2023, has added several advisor teams in the past year, including groups from Wells Fargo and Raymond James. The firm now reports $7.5 billion in regulatory assets under management and expects to reach $10 billion by year-end, in addition to $10 billion in retirement assets.
Concurrent, which operates with strategic backing from Merchant, recently unveiled an RIA Capital Partners model that emphasizes minority, non-controlling equity stakes in partner firms rather than full acquisitions, allowing advisors to retain autonomy while accessing shared resources and technology.
“The traditional minority investors in the space typically aren't investing in individual practices, they're investing in larger scale enterprises, so what we really saw was a gap,” Lenz told InvestmentNews in June.
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