UHNW is Mercer's fastest-growing division as $83 billion RIA buys Hollywood firm

The $83 billion mega-RIA Mercer Advisors says it is seeing its strongest growth from Regis Group, its ultra-high-net-worth division that recently expanded upon Mercer’s acquisition of the Los Angeles-area wealth management firm Singer Burke.

“It's the fastest growing part of our firm, it's grown organically faster than 20% per year at this point,” Mercer Advisors president Daniel Gourvitch told InvestmentNews. “Our Regis Group is built for families that in many situations could actually build a family office for themselves but choose to work with us.”

Regis Group includes families with $25 million or more in investable assets, and the division now spans $20 billion or roughly 25 percent of Mercer’s total AUM. Mercer’s latest addition to Regis Group is Singer Burke, a tax-focused firm founded in 1972 to serve Hollywood industry professionals and also operates a $1.2 billion RIA called SB Capital Management. 

Gourvitch, whose wife Ali Rosen is a cookbook author and TV host, pointed to royalties payments as one area of expertise Singer Burke delivers to its Hollywood clients. The firm’s clients span directors, writers, producers, talent agents, showrunners, composers and more off-camera professionals.

“Many of the professionals in this industry are paid in part through royalties on work that they've done. If you ever opened one of those contracts, you'll find that there's actually like 17 different lines triggered by very specific events of when someone is owed money by the studio or whoever is paying the royalty,” Gourvitch said. “Singer Burke has developed a proprietary database to track that and make sure the clients are receiving the income they're owed, either directly or into their production company as part of managing their overall finances.”

About 60 staff from Singer Burke are joining Mercer, including lead executives Matthew Burke, Richard Singer, Elaina Kogan, Stephanie Connor Arkof, and Amitha Harichandran. UHNW services offered under Mercer’s Regis Group include bookkeeping, bill pay, succession planning, senior estate and tax specialists, and expanded access to private market investments. 

“We have a world class private markets platform that's available to every qualified purchaser at Mercer. But once you get into our Regis families, you're often talking about direct participation and private portfolios that have been built up over time and managing and administrating those,” Gourvitch said.