RIA sale prices turn on retention; the structure carries the multiple

01Only 72 of 213 deals disclosed a client-asset figure, so the multiple stays private#

A multiple is sale price divided by a measure of profit or revenue. Private Wealth Daily's Deal Tracker holds the client-asset figures disclosed in deal coverage, not prices, so it can rank the size of what changed hands without revealing what anyone paid for it. Not every row is an advisory practice: Nuveen's completed acquisition of Schroders is recorded at $2.6 trillion in assets under management. Read the median as a description of disclosed scale rather than a valuation.

DeVoe & Company put the fall in RIA deal announcements at 19% and ties it to the six-to-18-month gap between an owner deciding to sell and the deal going public. The announcement count therefore describes decisions taken in an earlier market than the one buyers are pricing today, which suggests the disclosed size bands will keep describing the past for a while.

The tracker separates 161 announced deals from 52 closed ones over the same 180 days, which is how a single transaction can sit in both columns, as Concurrent's Spire purchase does.

02Buyers pay for the fee stream and the team before they pay for gross assets#

Elevation Point took a minority stake in Truing Capital Advisors, a Las Vegas firm formed by a UBS team led by founding partners Russell Price and Salvatore Mineo that oversaw about $750 million in client assets, and did not disclose the size of its investment. The Minneapolis investor has said it usually takes a 20% minimum in partner practices, and since launching in summer 2024 it has backed firms representing about $14.4 billion in assets under supervision. Truing's clients are company founders, families with concentrated real estate and people working through a business sale, a divorce or the death of a spouse, a book whose value depends on the two founding partners staying.

The same logic runs through larger deals. Vistria Group agreed to buy a majority stake in $14 billion Chicago RIA Curi Capital with terms undisclosed; the medical malpractice insurer that held majority ownership keeps a stake alongside employees and Wealth Partners Capital Group, Curi's leadership and branding stay, and the new capital funds technology, recruiting and acquisitions. Cerity Partners, which reports more than $206 billion in client assets, merged in Cornerstone Capital at $1.4 billion and Echo Wealth Management at about $337 million.

In all three, the figure disclosed is the client book and the figure withheld is the price. The undisclosed part turns on one question: how durable the client relationships are, and who carries the cost if they move.

Our new structure gives us greater control over how we serve clients and the flexibility to build solutions around their needs, supported by the resources and capabilities of leading financial institutions

Russell Price, founding partner, Truing Capital Advisors, in a statement

03Platform fit adds a premium: a market, a retirement account type, a cross-border book#

Cerity's two deals bought different things. Cornerstone, founded in 1978 and based in Palo Alto, serves high-net-worth families, foundations and endowments and deepens Cerity's Silicon Valley presence; Echo gives Cerity its first foothold in Minneapolis, and both take the Cerity name. A market where the buyer has no office is one a buyer cannot build quickly, which is part of what the price reflects.

Alto agreed to buy Forge Trust Co. and its parent from Schwab, pooling $20 billion in retirement assets and more than 60,000 self-directed IRA accounts, subject to South Dakota banking approval. Schwab had bought Forge's parent, Forge Global Holdings, in a $660 million deal finalized earlier this year. Alto's interest is the account type: a self-directed IRA custodian that lets retirement money reach private-market investments, an effort Alto extended in August with a platform for advisor-sourced private deals.

CohnReznick agreed to add Aldrich's $8 billion wealth practice, with closing set for mid-December. Wealthspire's Ground Control bought London-based Atlantic Swiss, a $1 billion manager whose eight advisors and founding partner Craig Bell join an existing U.K. business with offices in London and the Midlands. Waverly Advisors agreed to buy a $1.7 billion Richmond RIA, its 36th deal since Aspire took a stake in 2021. Aspen Standard Wealth bought Cullen Investment Group, its fourth deal of 2026, lifting assets across its affiliates past $16.5 billion.

Each of those buys a position that would take years to assemble: a market, a retirement account type, a cross-border platform, a regional book.

04Asset purchases, majority stakes, minority stakes and rollups price different seller commitments#

Concurrent bought Spire Investment Partners as an asset purchase, which transfers specified assets and client relationships rather than the seller's corporate entity, and closed on Sept. 30. Spire is a McLean, Va. hybrid RIA founded in 1997 with more than 30 advisor teams and about $5.4 billion in assets.

A majority stake leaves the seller inside the business: in Vistria's Curi deal, management and branding stay and the prior majority owner keeps a stake. Minority capital is the lightest form, and Elevation Point's usual 20% minimum buys influence and growth exposure without control, with Truing keeping its name and its client assets at Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions.

Mergers put the seller's book inside the buyer's entity, as Cerity did with Cornerstone and Echo. A holding company keeps firms separate: Sammons Financial Group put Beacon, NorthRock Partners and Wealthcare under Criterion with $27 billion in combined AUM/A, each keeping its brand and its own Form ADV, with Michael Mock as president. Hightower's Bahnsen Group agreed to buy Hightower Naples, about $1.1 billion, under the platform's franchise model, and Hightower itself split its rollup from its growth unit into two businesses with separate presidents, which gives any buyer two things to price.

The same client assets under five contracts produce five answers to who carries the risk that clients leave.

05Disclosed size runs small: 38 deals under $1 billion against 3 at $20 billion or more#

Of the 213 deals, 38 came in under $1 billion, 24 between $1 billion and $5 billion, seven between $5 billion and $20 billion and three at $20 billion or more. The $924 million median sits inside the smallest band.

Size not disclosed is the table's biggest line at 141 deals, Private Wealth Daily's Deal Tracker shows. Repeat buyers concentrate in the middle. Merit Financial Advisors logged five deals and $5.1 billion of disclosed client assets, closing three; Hightower logged three and $3.5 billion with none closed; Beacon Pointe three and $2.4 billion with two closed; Modern Wealth Management three, $1.4 billion, all closed. AlphaCore Wealth Advisory's three deals disclosed $400 million between them, the lowest disclosed total among the ranked buyers.

Beacon Pointe's $1.35 billion three-RIA transaction on Oct. 20 pushed the firm past $70 billion in client assets. Coverage of Merit's $1.1 billion Moldenhauer & Associates purchase calls it Merit's 12th deal of 2026, against the five the tracker counts in its 180-day window. Counting rules matter: CAPTRUST's $1.2 billion Long Island transaction was described as a double deal that was already one firm.

Financing moves bids too. Mercer Advisors refinanced $1.9 billion of debt in its first syndicated loan and cut its borrowing cost by 175 basis points. That suggests the top of the price range tracks the buyer's cost of capital as closely as any client book.