Savant rebrands tax and consulting arm as it builds out advisory scope

Savant Wealth Management's accounting and advisory-focused subsidiary is entering a new phase as the Rockford, Illinois-based firm presses on with its broader agenda of expansion through acquisitions.

Savant Tax & Consulting has officially changed its name to Savant Accounting & Business Advisory, the firm said Tuesday as it announced two new additions to the unit.

The new partnerships with Professional Business Management Inc., a Barrington, Illinois, firm that serves physicians, dentists and other healthcare providers, and Summit CPA Group, a Rockford-based accounting and advisory firm, took effect on August 31. 

PBM, founded in 1932, has built its practice around healthcare providers. Summit CPA Group, founded in 1999, has worked with business owners on accounting, tax and advisory matters across northern Illinois.

Savant, which now reportedly manages more than $57 billion in client assets, did not disclose financial terms of either deal.

"For more than two decades, we have intentionally expanded our accounting, tax, and advisory capabilities to better serve the increasingly complex needs of our clients," said Savant founder and CEO Brent Brodeski.

"The SABA name reflects the organization we have built and the comprehensive services we provide today," he added, emphasizing the firm's enhanced "ability to support business owners, individuals, and families through coordinated advice and planning."

Melissa Orlando, head of Savant Accounting & Business Advisory, said the change is meant to catch up with how clients already use the firm.

"Many clients come to us for tax services, but they often rely on us for much more than that," Orlando said. "Today, we help clients address accounting, payroll, consulting, and business advisory needs – such as succession planning – in addition to tax planning and preparation."

The rebrand is the latest step in a run of dealmaking that has made Savant one of the more active acquirers among registered investment advisers this year. According to one recent M&A snapshot by Fidelity, Savant was the most active acquirer with nine acquisitions in the first half of this year, followed by the KKR-backed Beacon Pointe Advisors with eight.

Read more: Acquired RIA assets nearly doubled in 2026, Fidelity finds

Over the summer, the fee-onnly RIA expanded its presence in the Empire State by partnering with Socha Financial Group, a Corning, New York-based advisory firm. Elsewhere in the Northeast, Savant expanded ito Maine with the addition of Richard Brothers Financial Advisors, operated by a nine-person team in South Portland.

Over on the West Coast, Savant acquired the Bay Area-based RIA Parkworth Wealth Management, which gave it a financial planning foothold among Silicon Valley employees working at the likes of Apple, Nvidia, Meta, and Google.

The firm's ramped-up acquisition strategy also coincided with a change in its capital stack. In July, private equity firm Cynosure Partners, Savant's backer for the past decade, moved $270 million of its stake into a continuation vehicle fully funded by Hamilton Lane, the alternative asset manager that oversees roughly $1 trillion. That transaction gave Hamilton Lane a stake in Savant's future growth while allowing Cynosure to realize partial liquidity, a structure that has every possibility of becoming increasingly common among private equity-backed RIA platforms looking for an alternative exit route that doesn't involve an IPO.

“As PE investment in RIA firms matures and there is not a monetization event via IPO or sale of their portfolio RIA firm investments or a new PE sponsor or other investor (like a sovereign wealth fund) higher up the sponsor ladder interested in coming in, these continuation funds become one of the few options PE funds have to be able to get capital back plus returns to their early investors,” M&A strategist Corey Kupfer told InvestmentNews at the time.