Hightower's Bahnsen Group to buy Hightower Naples, adding about $1.1 billion in client assets

Hightower's Bahnsen Group has agreed to acquire Hightower Naples, adding about $1.1 billion in client assets. Hightower says Naples would be the first existing Hightower advisory practice to join Bahnsen under the parent's flagship franchise model. The transaction is expected to close at year's end and would give Bahnsen a second Florida location.

The $1.1 billion is client assets, not a purchase price, and the coverage does not report a multiple, retention terms for Naples advisors or deferred consideration. It also does not say whether any cash changes hands between the two businesses.

Bahnsen is Hightower's flagship franchise and Naples is an existing Hightower practice, so both sides of the transaction sit under the same parent. The practical consequence is that the $1.1 billion describes the size of the book moving under a different brand rather than a price an outside buyer agreed to pay.

The first-of-its-kind framing comes from Hightower and is the announcement's most strategic element. If an existing Hightower practice can move under the flagship franchise, that franchise would offer Hightower advisors a way to change brands without leaving the parent; the coverage does not say whether other practices are weighing the same move.

The week's other RIA deals show the same habit of publishing asset totals while leaving price out. AlphaCore Wealth Advisory added Blue Rock Financial Group, a $400 million Delaware practice; Bluespring Wealth Partners folded Family Wealth Counseling into KDI Wealth Management, lifting combined assets past $1 billion; and Constellation Wealth Capital took a minority stake in BakerAvenue, a $6.3 billion RIA, with the capital undisclosed. Merit Financial's acquisition of Moldenhauer & Associates carries the same $1.1 billion asset figure as the Naples deal.