The two engines behind RIA dealmaking's 40% run

RIA dealmaking in the first half of 2026 ran nearly 40% ahead of last year’s pace, according to a midyear report from Berkshire Global Advisors cited by InvestmentNews, which also noted the broader pattern of scale-building through recruiting, acquisition and outside capital. This week’s announcements out of Las Vegas and New York laid bare the two very different economic engines under that one number: one grows by convincing advisors to bring their books, the other by borrowing against the books it buys.

The Wealth Consulting Group, the Las Vegas hybrid RIA platform, crossed $12.1 billion in assets under advisement as of July 31, a 27% increase from a year earlier that the firm credits to more than $2.6 billion in recruited assets over the past 18 months—a pace of roughly $144 million a month. WCG was founded in 1995 by Jimmy Lee and built its independent platform in 2014 to let advisors keep their practices while tapping centralized operations support. The executive quotes map the same terrain: Matt Gilliam, senior vice president of strategic partnerships, says the growth is “primarily because our firm has risen to the occasion and is meeting the needs of today’s advisors,” while President Andy Kalbaugh points to the Partners Program as a way to build enterprise value and take partial monetization on an advisor’s own timeline. “Our value proposition and culture resonate with experienced advisors looking beyond payout for their final professional home,” Kalbaugh said. The model is asset-additive without being liability-additive: WCG’s growth is funded by advisors who bring their books with them, not by borrowed money.

Coastline Wealth Management, the Long Island platform, is running the opposite playbook. It closed a senior secured credit facility of up to $100 million from private credit firm Brightwood Capital Advisors, and in the same announcement said it had completed 12 acquisitions—a mix of full and partial practice purchases—that pushed its combined assets under management and administration past $6 billion. Coastline was founded in 2012 with roughly $20 million in starting assets; it has now completed more than 30 acquisitions and serves more than 10,000 clients. The Brightwood facility is debt rather than equity, giving the lender a senior claim on the client books the money is buying. CEO Garrett Taylor described the $6 billion mark as a reflection of the quality of the advisors and teams who continue to choose to build their future with Coastline, which is true as far as it goes—but the liability side of Coastline’s ledger is now a first-class citizen in its growth story.

The two models carry different stress tests, and the difference shows up in the balance sheet. WCG’s growth costs retention and support; Coastline’s costs repayment with interest. The 40% headline will not survive contact with the intent-to-close gap PWD has tracked—a 2.7-to-1 spread between announced deals and completed ones. Coastline’s 12 closings are the exception to that pattern, and they are financed by a lender that expects to be repaid, not a private equity sponsor waiting to exit. That makes the debt-funded roll-up a more honest trade than the equity-funded version, but also a more fragile one. A senior secured lender has sharper enforcement tools than a sponsor does, and the terms will measure client retention, not just multiple arbitrage. The announcement does not say whether the 12 acquisitions involve seller notes or earnouts, but a $100 million senior secured facility suggests the deals were structured for cash.

Private credit has circled the wealth channel for years, but Coastline’s facility is a concrete example of the money moving in. The senior secured structure means Brightwood’s claim sits ahead of every equity holder, and the collateral is the client book itself—a different risk calculus than a minority stake, and one that brings a lender’s discipline to acquisition math. If private credit becomes a standard funding source for RIA buyers, the price a debt-funded acquirer can pay is a function of recurring revenue and retention rather than the next sponsor’s exit multiple. For sellers, that is a meaningful change: a lender’s underwriting becomes the valuation floor, and that floor is built on cash flow rather than on a multiple of future earnings.

Watch the next Coastline-style facility. If private credit starts writing retention covenants that adjust pricing when clients walk, the cost of acquisition changes for every buyer who needs borrowed money. That is the term sheet to watch.