Solid start to wealth management deals in 2024: report
The first three month of 2024 were the second best start to the year on record for wealth management firms in regard to deal making and transactions, according to a new report from Echelon Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on mergers and succession planning in the wealth and investment management industries.
In the first quarter of the year, there were 90 announced transactions, according to Echelon, representing a 20% increase over the same period last year, when 75 deals were announced. The first quarter of 2024 was the second most active first quarter on record, according to Echelon’s tally.
The rest of the year should continue to see a busy M&A market, according to the report. The wealth management industry is on track to announce a total of 330 deals in 2024, a moderate increase from the 321 transactions announced last year, according to Echelon’s RIA M&A deal report, which the bank publishes quarterly.
The mergers and acquisition market for RIAs and wealth management firms has been booming for almost a decade and red hot since COVID 19, as both well-established buyers and newer aggregators began duking it out to buy firms. Even the spike in interest rates and record highs for stocks, both of which make acquisitions costlier, have not dampened the demand to buy registered investment advisors and broker-dealers.
“Regarding the frequency of deals, I don’t see that slowing down,” said Peter Nesvold, partner at Republic Capital Group. “As long as we have a reasonably sound economy, we’ll see the march upward of both size of the firms, with billions in assets, along with the frequency of mergers and acquisitions.”
“We’re seeing continued deal flow of mid-sized and smaller RIAs, along with broker-dealers,
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