SEIA president calls $30B RIA merger a ‘distinct possibility’

Signature Estate & Investment Advisors (SEIA), the Los Angeles-based RIA with roughly $30 billion in assets under advisement, has big plans for expansion through M&A as the firm targets $100 billion in assets by 2030.

Speaking to InvestmentNews on the sidelines of Schwab’s IMPACT conference in Denver, SEIA president Matt Matrisian said his firm could be active in seeking “merger of equals” transactions.

“I would say in 2026 you'll start to see more mergers of equals coming into play as firms look to capitalize on scale. I would venture to see us playing in that space as well,” said Matrisian. "Those are very opportunistic, obviously. But could I see us potentially merging with another $20 to $30 billion RIA in the next 18 months? That's a distinct possibility.”

Matrisian added that SEIA was not currently talking to any firms on a merger of equal-type scale, “but just the way the market is going, I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of plays out.” SEIA has made three acquisitions since launching its dedicated M&A strategy in late 2023, with its biggest being last year’s deal for the $2 billion RIA Cedar Brook in Cleveland.

“I'm looking at a couple of deals right now that are $8 billion to $10 billion in assets. I think that those will be very attractive for us,” Matrisian said. “We do probably our best work with firms that are $500 million to $2 billion. It's accretive enough for the firm where it's attractive for us to do it, [but] it's not such a big transition where it's going to shut down the firm for a period of time to assimilate that firm into our organization. So that's kind of the sweet spot that we've historically played.”

Reverence Capital Partners, which invested in SEIA in 2022 and also owns independent broker-dealer giant Osaic, has a roughly 55% majority stake in SEIA. A special purpose vehicle owns 10% of SEIA and the remaining shares are owned by advisors, Matrisian said. The firm has about 140 advisors and 28 offices.

“We've seen a 5x EBITDA expansion since 2022. The conversations to date have largely been for a liquidity event somewhere in the 2028 to 2030 timeframe,” said Matrisian. “Reverence typically likes to hold on to their winners. So I think there's a distinct possibility that they could potentially roll us into the next fund, if they choose to do that. They've done that with Russell Investments, they've done that with Osaic. Because we've had pretty strong both top line as well as bottom line growth, I think that that's a distinct possibility.”

SEIA partakes in custodial referral programs through Schwab, Fidelity, and AssetMark, which was Matrisian’s employer before he joined SEIA in the spring. Matrisian says that SEIA has been a top-10 producer in both the Schwab Advisor Network (SAN) and Fidelity’s Wealth Advisor Solutions (WAS) client referral programs, which have helped spur organic growth rates between 8% - 11% for SEIA’s advisory teams. 

SEIA has made a push over the past year to convert 1099 contractors into W-2 employees, a transition replicated by other large RIAs such as OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners. About 30 advisors across 10 teams at SEIA have converted from 1099 to W-2 employees over the past year.

“They get access to our benefits, access to our size and scale, and reduced complexity for the lead advisor in managing the firm, allowing them to free up time to focus on growing the business,” Matrisian says of SEIA’s W-2 employee model. “From a valuation perspective, it allows them to exchange their equity for our equity, which allows them to participate in EBITDA arbitrage and a growing valuation rate as the overall firm continues to scale and grow.”