Summit Financial sees RIA M&A pause amid Iran conflict

Signet Financial Management, $1.2 billion RIA based in Parsippany, New Jersey, has sold a minority stake to fellow Parsippany-headquartered RIA Summit Financial, pushing the national firm's assets under management to $24 billion.

In addition to sharing a hometown base in the Garden State, both Summit and Signet are backed by serial RIA investor Merchant Investment Management. Merchant made a minority investment in Signet in 2021 and announced its majority stake in Summit Financial in January 2025. Signet was founded in 1988 by Jonathan Krasney and its current leadership includes principals Eugene Yashin, Steve Tuttle, and Shawn Hirsch with offices in New Jersey, Florida, and Virginia. Signet ranked No. 40 on CNBC's Financial Advisor 100 list of firms. The new minority investment means Signet is converting onto Summit's form ADV.

"I think it's probably a beginning of a lot of more things to come, where you have these larger billion dollar firms that have gotten to a point of, hey, they cracked a billion, but how do you go to two and four and five and 10 [billion dollars AUM] , which is not easy," Summit Financial CEO Stan Gregor said of its deal with Signet. "We are not just here to take an equity position and sit around like a tick sucking the blood out of business. That's not our model. When I look at the results we've had so far as a firm now, since 2020 we're up 10x, and the teams that joined, their growth rate is significantly higher than what the markets have been performing at."

Gregor added that Summit is active in about 40 states and has minority investments in more than 20 RIAs, with an M&A pipeline that also includes deals to take majority stakes. RIAs backed by Summit get relief support across HR, compliance, technology, and capital to fuel their own M&A growth.

"What I see, more often than not, is hey Stan, if you can take these things off my plate, that would be a huge value add. But now, if you can help me grow, and you can help me acquire and you can give me capital to go make acquisitions or buy minority stakes, that's a game changer," Gregor said.

Signet is among the largest RIAs to partner with Summit Financial, joining other billion-plus firms such as SRM Private Wealth and Gordon Asset Management. Summit's "sweet spot" for RIAs are firms with between $500 million to $1.5 billion in assets. On the M&A front, Gregor admitted that the outbreak of war in Iran and subsequent market reaction has impacted deal flow in the RIA space.  

"Moves are going to probably be on pause for a while, for obvious reasons. I don't think deals are going to get unwound, but we have a number of transactions that we've signed and they've asked—right now it's a little crazy, can we take some time to push things out a bit? It makes a ton of sense. So if we're seeing it, I'm sure everybody else is seeing it," said Gregor.