While it wasn’t a big week for deals in the registered investment advisor space, there were some notable moves impacting the RIA space. Dynasty Financial Partners, for instance, announced some senior executive shuffling, hiring a new chief operating officer and creating the new roles of chief growth officer and head of core services.

In earlier reported news, $18 billion RIA Homrich Berg has agreed to sell a minority stake in the firm to TPG, the San Francisco-headquartered private equity firm, in a deal that would value it at around $1 billion. Kingswood U.S. acquired Nashville-based Eudaimonia Group, three RIAs managing more than $1 billion in assets across 17 advisors. Carina Diamond, who left Dakota Wealth Management last year to launch her own consulting business, has joined Gries Financial Partners, a Cleveland-based RIA, as chief growth officer in a newly created role. And Carson Group acquired True North Financial, a Billings, Mont.-based RIA with about $400 million in assets, marking its sixth acquisition of the year. 

Dynasty Names Tim Oden Chief Growth Officer

Dynasty Financial Partners announced some changes to its senior leadership team this week.

Tim Oden, a former managing director of business development at Schwab Advisor Services, was appointed chief growth officer, a new position. Oden joined Dynasty earlier this year as executive-in-residence for 2024. Oden left Schwab late last year after more than 30 years at the company.

Dynasty launched the executive-in-residence program last year as part of its “Advisor-to-CEO” program, which tailors content and coaching for CEOs at the RIAs in its network. Andrew Marsh, co-founder of Richardson Wealth, a Canadian wealth management firm that went public in 2020, was Dynasty’s first executive-in-residence. Last September, Marsh was appointed Dynasty’s first vice chairman. This week, he was named head of core services, a new role in which he’ll architect the services that Dynasty provides to its network of firms.

Also, Marc Hineman joined the firm as chief operating officer. Most recently, he served as COO of Pico, a technology provider for financial services companies. Dynasty’s former COO, Ed Swenson, left the firm last year to join Osaic.

Merchant Stakes Republic Capital Group

Merchant Investment Management has taken a minority, non-controlling interest in Republic Capital Group, a boutique investment bank for wealth and asset managers.  

Founded in late 2015 by Managing Partner John Langston, RCG has quietly become one of the most dominant M&A players in the independent wealth management space, responsible for advising on more than $150 billion in client assets transacted in 2022 and 2023.

Meanwhile, Merchant’s footprint includes $180 billion in assets in the wealth and asset management industry. It has also invested in multiple service providers in the space.

Focus Partner Acquires Denver RIA

Focus Financial Partners has facilitated a subacquisition by one of its partner firms, with Transform Wealth buying fellow Denver firm Custom Portfolio Group.

CPG was founded in 2011 by President David Twibell, and had about $176 million in client assets, according to the firm’s most recent Form ADV. Transform Wealth had about $2.5 billion in assets as of the end of 2023, according to its Form ADV.

Transform became a Focus partner in 2016. With offices in Denver, Colorado Springs, Colo. and Houston, the RIA is led by brothers Nathan and David Kubik.

Cetera-Owned TRPG Adds $185M Firm

The Retirement Planning Group, a $2.6 billion RIA in the southern Kansas City suburbs, has acquired Parrott Wealth Management, an Austin-based firm with approximately $185 million in assets under management. This represents TRPG’s fourth acquisition since it was acquired by Cetera in 2023.

William Parrott leads Parrott Wealth Management, and the firm’s three full-time professionals will become employees of Cetera.

Cetera Holdings, the holding company of Cetera Financial Group, announced the acquisition of TRPG about a year ago. That represented its first acquisition of a pure RIA.