Stevens Capital nears $1B after acquiring Dallas CPA practice

Stevens Capital Partners, an Omaha-based RIA, has crossed $800 million in assets under management, according to InvestmentNews, after taking in the Dallas tax practice of Joe DePetris. DePetris is an 80-year-old CPA who spent more than three decades serving individuals and businesses before deciding to wind down. The deal adds more than 300 tax clients, including more than 100 businesses spread across 15 states, and the firm's footprint now covers more than 40 states. Nebraska and New York account for the largest shares of its client base.

David Stevens, founder and chief executive, spent more than two decades at TD Ameritrade before launching the firm in November 2020, around the time Schwab acquired TD Ameritrade at a $26 billion valuation. The firm has ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of fast-growing private companies for a second consecutive year, and Stevens told InvestmentNews it added roughly $50 million in new business in the past week alone.

DePetris's practice is the kind of succession seller RIAs see again and again: a senior CPA's client list, built over decades, with one owner deciding when to stop. Stevens Capital gets a Texas tax book and a client base that has already paid a professional for financial guidance. The test is how many of those tax clients widen into asset management relationships.

Stevens says Omaha is a rich market for wealth-transfer work. He notes families arriving from western Nebraska and eastern Iowa, and a metro population that has grown by more than 35,000 in five years. The corporate anchors of the local economy concentrate legacy money in the city: Union Pacific, Mutual of Omaha, and Berkshire Hathaway, whose founder Warren Buffett stepped back last year in a planned succession to Greg Abel. About 70% of Stevens Capital's business already comes from outside Nebraska.

Stevens argues his firm sits in a thin slice of the professional category. "There are plenty of registered investment advisors, but far fewer fee-only, SEC-registered RIAs," he told InvestmentNews. The Investment Advisor Association's latest count puts 200 SEC-registered RIAs in Nebraska, overseeing $251 billion. Nationwide, the same group counted 16,544 firms managing $176.8 trillion as of 2025. That contrast gives a fee-only SEC-registered RIA a meaningful point of difference in its home state.

At $800 million, Stevens Capital needs about $200 million more to reach $1 billion. The firm's own one-week number suggests the pipeline is alive, but one week is not a run rate. The durable part of the story is the demographic pattern. An 80-year-old CPA reached a retirement decision; a fee-only RIA was there to take the book. The same crossroads will keep appearing in tax practices as their owners age, and Stevens Capital looks positioned to keep walking through them.