Consolidation in the RIA market has now prolonged to the industry’s dealmakers them selves.
RIA-targeted investment bank Park Sutton Advisors is offering alone to Waller Helms Advisors (WHA), a fellow expenditure bank centered in Chicago that specializes in coverage brokerage, healthcare and financial technology transactions.
Specific fiscal terms of the transaction, which is becoming funded with a mixture of dollars and fairness, had been not disclosed, however Park Sutton Advisors reported that managing director Steven Levitt and directors Dan Erichson and John Eubanks will develop into partners at WHA. The transaction is predicted to close in the third quarter of 2022 when it gets approval from Finra.
‘While I definitely love what I’m undertaking and program to do this for several years to appear, I considered it just could make sense turning out to be section of anything more substantial, a little something a bit more diversified,’ stated Levitt (pictured), who is 53 decades previous.
New York Metropolis-primarily based Park Sutton Advisors has grown from five staff to 18 over the earlier five several years. The investment decision financial institution properly shepherded 25 wealth administration transactions in 2021.
WHA’s complete worker headcount will swell to 50 folks as a result of the deal. Park Sutton will retain its brand identity for the time staying, Levitt explained.
‘The addition of Park Sutton considerably enhances our capabilities in the prosperity and investment decision management sector and produces a professional organization with 11 taking care of administrators who correctly encouraged on more than 50 transactions in 2021,’ WHA chief government James Anderson mentioned in a statement.
Levitt advised Citywire that he experienced grown fatigued of some of the far more prosaic duties that appear with functioning a small business, this kind of as compliance and cybersecurity.
‘Hopefully this offers the senior bankers of Park Sutton, notably me, additional leverage,’ Levitt stated.
The offer between Park Sutton Advisors and WHA is arguably the most noteworthy one particular to contact the RIA M&A advisory room considering that Liz Nesvold’s Silver Lane Advisors bought alone to Raymond James in 2019. The offer created Raymond James 1 of the RIA industry’s most prolific financial investment banks.
Could additional RIA M&A shops stick to in Park Sutton’s and Silver Lane’s footsteps?
‘Yeah, possibly,’ Levitt said. ‘I consider we facial area some of the identical challenges as RIAs, which is that you need scale. As you get larger, if you actually want to enhance the prospect in the place, you want to make investments, and there’s just a ton of things that usually takes you away from becoming ready to serve clientele.’
McDermott, Will & Emery served as WHA’s lawful counsel. Griffin Money served as Park Sutton Advisors’s monetary advisor, although Godfrey & Kahn served as its authorized counsel.