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The $947 million median is the wrong number for a $250 million-to-$1 billion RIA weighing a sale. Its real market is the 36 deals under $1 billion among the 69 that disclosed client assets in the 90 days to Oct. 26. That market belongs to the buyers who actually closed those deals. Principals at that size should test their leverage there.
The median itself is honest but narrow. Private Wealth Daily's Deal Tracker logged far more deals in the period than ever disclosed a size. Only 69 carried disclosed client assets, and the $947 million is a client-asset figure computed from those, not a deal price. Most deals disclosed nothing. A number built on the disclosers describes the disclosers. And the disclosers group low.
Our read of the tracker is that the buyers behind the headline multiples are mostly not the buyers who will bid for a sub-$1 billion firm. At that size, minority-capital platforms and custody-led independence compete with a thin set of acquirers that have completed a deal at the same scale. For a $400 million principal, the gap between the sub-$1 billion disclosers and the handful of giant trades at the top is about access. It decides who takes the first meeting. It decides whose investment committee has already said yes at her size.
So change the order of diligence before touching the price expectation. Ask an acquirer which sub-$1 billion deals it has closed lately, and which of those founders rolled equity and are still there. Then ask who staffs integration once the deal closes. Headline AUM and the multiple come after. The acquirer table makes the case for that sequence. Hightower, Wealth Enhancement and AlphaCore each recorded three deals in the period and closed none; Modern Wealth closed every deal it recorded, and Merit all but one. A pipeline shows interest. A closing shows what an investment committee approved and what a seller of your size accepted.
By the numbers
The 90 days to Oct. 26, 2026
- Deals recorded
- 206
- Announced
- 156
- Closed
- 50
- With disclosed client assets
- 69
Source: Private Wealth Daily Deal Tracker
- Deals recorded
- 206
- Announced
- 156
- Closed
- 50
- With disclosed client assets
- 69
- Median disclosed client assets
- $947 million
Source: Private Wealth Daily Deal Tracker
The median sits inside the small seller's band, and the closers are a short list#
Start with where the median falls. At $947 million, the median disclosed deal sits below the $1 billion line itself. Anyone citing it as the center of the market is citing a number from inside the band most sellers occupy. That is an argument for studying the sub-$1 billion deals directly. Borrowing prestige from the big trades gets a small seller nowhere.
The acquirer counts lean the same way. Merit was the busiest buyer in the period, recording four deals and closing three. Modern Wealth closed all three of its deals. Hightower recorded as many as Modern Wealth and closed none. Schwab Advisor Services appears with recorded deals, no closings and no disclosed client assets. Custodians and platforms sit in the same data as the serial acquirers, and a seller's list should include them. A custodian is not bidding for her firm. It is bidding to make selling unnecessary, which is a different and sometimes better offer.
Appetite is cooling as well. DeVoe & Company, presenting at its September summit, reported 19% fewer RIA transactions announced through Sept. 22 than in the same stretch a year earlier. Announcements measure appetite. Closings measure what a buyer signed. The gap between the 156 announced and the 50 closed in the tracker period is where a seller's diligence belongs, because that is where a buyer's published terms meet the terms a seller actually took.
A principal with $400 million in client assets is not choosing between the median deal and nothing. She is choosing between a firm that has closed at her size and a firm that has merely announced at her size. The second list is longer. It is also the list that will waste her quarter.
| Client assets disclosed | Deals |
|---|---|
| Under $1 billion | 36 |
| $1 billion to $5 billion | 24 |
| $5 billion to $20 billion | 6 |
| $20 billion and up | 3 |
| Size not disclosed | 137 |
Source: Private Wealth Daily Deal Tracker
At $750 million, the Truing team bought independence instead of an auction#
The clearest proof that sub-$1 billion sellers shop a different market is what they have been buying. Russell Price and Salvatore "Sam" Mineo left UBS, where their Las Vegas team operated as MPI Wealth Management, and launched Truing Capital Advisors with about $750 million in client assets. Elevation Point, the Minneapolis investor launched by former Sanctuary Wealth CEO Jim Dickson, took a minority stake. Client assets will sit at Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions. Both founders are long-tenured advisors who joined UBS together from Nevada State Bank, according to BrokerCheck. Their clients include business owners and families with concentrated real estate, along with people mid-divorce or after the death of a spouse. That book would draw bids. The founders took a partner instead and kept the firm.
Elevation Point did not disclose the size of the Truing stake, though it has said it usually takes a 20% minimum in partner practices. Since its summer 2024 launch it had invested in firms representing about $14.4 billion in client assets under supervision.
The structure is the seller's case in a sentence: a stake plus a platform, with the firm kept. A practice that takes minority capital and keeps control has set a floor under what it would accept for the remainder. No count of announced transactions shows that floor. If the stake sits at Elevation Point's usual 20% minimum, the founders keep the rest of a $750 million firm they still run. The investor earns its return only if the practice grows, so both sides pull the same way while the stake is held. That alignment is the product. It is also why a minority deal is no substitute for a sale when a founder wants out.
Independence is growing at the small end. XY Planning Network had 110 firms working toward registration, up from 60 a year earlier, and kept adding members. RIABiz tied part of that rise to advisors leaving rollup-owned firms. A principal whose fallback is to register her own firm negotiates from a different starting point than one who has already decided to sell. Buyers can tell which is which by the second meeting.
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
Big-brand buyers have a real case until you ask who stayed#
The case for the big brands is strong and deserves a full hearing. Beacon Pointe passed $70 billion in client assets on a string of acquisitions led by WorthPointe, a California and Texas planning firm with about $1 billion. Hightower agreed to add Sandy Cove, a Hingham, Mass., practice with about $752 million, to Hightower Signature Wealth, its employee channel. Sandy Cove's work centers on family legacy planning and clients in transitions such as divorce. That is exactly the kind of practice that goes to a larger firm for planning depth. Beacon Pointe closed most of its deals in the period; Hightower closed none.
Hightower's hub model is the buyers' best argument. The Bahnsen Group, acquired by Hightower and made a hub for integrating advisory firms, will take the $1.1 billion Hightower Naples practice under its brand at the end of the year. The move opens "our brand and mousetrap for other Hightower teams to join," David Bahnsen said. Hightower CEO Larry Restieri said he expects the firm to create additional hubs. Integration capacity is a real asset, and a small seller buys it when she picks a large acquirer. A franchise that lets one acquired team absorb another proves the capacity exists.
Concede that fully. It answers the integration question on a seller's list. It says nothing about retention, meaning whether the acquired firm's founder is still there two years on.
The data has a weakness too. The 137 deals that disclosed no size cut against any size-band screen. A seller who filters on closed sub-$1 billion deals will drop buyers that close plenty and never publish the assets. The screen is a proxy for proof, and it will misfire on quiet buyers. Say so at the start of every conversation, and let a quiet buyer show its record privately.
Retention is where the concession stops. WorthPointe's deal closed on Oct. 15. Its founder and majority owner, Christopher P. Van Slyke, will not join Beacon Pointe; he is pursuing "other projects," a Beacon Pointe spokesperson said. WorthPointe had a second named leader in Anthony G. Ferreira, who began with the firm when it was called Trovena. A bench helps. It is not the founder, and a buyer's retention assumptions usually rest on the founder.
Merit's $1.1 billion Moldenhauer & Associates deal closed Sept. 25, paid in a mix of cash and equity, with the 13-person team staying in its Orchard Park, N.Y., office. Two closings at comparable size. Two different answers on the founder. Both buyers got the deal done, and what happened to the people afterward is the comparable a seller should hold.
Deals by acquirer, the 90 days to 2026-10-26
- Merit Financial Advisors4
- Hightower3
- Beacon Pointe Advisors3
- Modern Wealth Management3
- Wealth Enhancement3
- AlphaCore Wealth Advisory3
- CAPTRUST3
- Concurrent2
- Waverly Advisors2
- HB Wealth2
- Stratos Wealth Enterprises2
- Schwab Advisor Services2
Show as table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Merit Financial Advisors | 4 |
| Hightower | 3 |
| Beacon Pointe Advisors | 3 |
| Modern Wealth Management | 3 |
| Wealth Enhancement | 3 |
| AlphaCore Wealth Advisory | 3 |
| CAPTRUST | 3 |
| Concurrent | 2 |
| Waverly Advisors | 2 |
| HB Wealth | 2 |
| Stratos Wealth Enterprises | 2 |
| Schwab Advisor Services | 2 |
What it means for advisors#
A principal with $250 million to $1 billion in client assets should sort buyers by the band where they have closed. Advertised AUM can wait. Most of the size-disclosed deals in the period were under $1 billion. The buyers that completed deals in that band are the relevant list, and it is shorter than the list of buyers who will take a meeting.
Put the questions in order. Ask how many sub-$1 billion deals the buyer closed in the last four quarters, and have it name them with closing dates. Ask which of those founders rolled equity and how many are still with the firm a year later. Then ask who runs integration, how long that person stays assigned to the practice, and what happens to the seller's staff when the retention terms expire. A buyer that answers with dates and names has handed over the file. A buyer that answers with aggregate AUM has shown off its marketing department.
Hold up Merit's Moldenhauer deal as the template: closed, paid partly in equity, the team retained, Merit's first New York location and another former Commonwealth practice brought in. WorthPointe is the control: closed, published, founder gone. Ask which of the two the buyer's last deal resembles. If it is the first, ask for the founder's number and call. Get all three answers in writing before the letter of intent. We think the retention answer is worth far more before an LOI than after, once talk has narrowed to price and earn-out.
The top of the market shows why a seller's alternative sets her price. Jim Atwood and Phil Scott left JPMorgan with roughly $18.6 billion in client assets to launch Latigo Peak Partners in Palm Beach Gardens, funding the launch themselves rather than taking private equity capital. No $400 million practice can run that play. The logic still scales down. Every buyer prices against what the seller would do instead of selling, and a minority partner that supplies custody and infrastructure lets a founder hold that alternative without giving up the book.
The seller who hears $947 million in a pitch should ask for the file behind it: the closing date, the founder's rollover, the team that stayed. The seller with a $400 million firm should ask who has closed one of these before and what happened to the people who signed. That answer belongs in the first meeting. By the last one, it is too late to price.
The test runs through the next 90-day tracker window after Oct. 26. If Hightower's recorded deals convert to closings, this column has been too hard on announced pipelines. If sub-$1 billion disclosed deals keep outnumbering the deals at $5 billion and up, the size-band screen holds. Beacon Pointe's next close will show whether a departing founder is its pattern or a one-off. With DeVoe counting fewer announcements than a year earlier, a buyer's completed-deal history only becomes the sharper question.
Written by PWD Editors. Published . Corrections · All long reads