RIA takes a bigger piece of the pro athlete market

MAI Capital Management, a $6 billion Cleveland-based RIA, has expanded into its sixth market with the acquisition of MTX Wealth Management, a $400 million advisory firm in the Washington area. The firms share a specialty — working with current and former professional athletes — and MAI managing partner Rick Buoncore said that part of the business will be rebranded to draw more attention to it later this summer. "We've been dealing with athletes for 45 years and never did much to market it," Mr. Buoncore said. "With this acquisition, we're going to take the summer to get the story together, but we will be rolling out a brand around it." The MTX deal, which closed Friday, marks MAI's third acquisition since it sold a partial ownership stake to Wealth Partners Capital two years ago. "Their main effort is to help us with M&A, and they found MTX for us," Mr. Buoncore said of Wealth Partners. "They're out there every day looking for firms that fit our client-first model," he added. "But they are not private-equity investors, so they have no timetable to their money." In addition to Cleveland and D.C., MAI has offices in Columbus, Ohio, and in southern California, Florida and New Hampshire. Mr. Buoncore said MAI will be making another acquisition announcement within a couple of weeks that will expand the RIA into another market and another area of financial planning specialization. He wouldn't provide any details on that deal.