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The RIA rollup machine

The week that was

🚨 Deals deals deals

Credit score

Chart of the week

Private equity is fueling a wave of acquisitions among registered investment advisers, the wealth managers that serve individual clients.

Why it matters: Sponsors are increasingly backing repeat acquirers, then recapitalizing the biggest ones for their next round of deals.

By the numbers: RIA dealmaking hit a second-quarter record of 120 announced transactions, according to Echelon.

PE-backed acquirers accounted for nearly 76% of those deals.

The most active buyers were Stratos Wealth Network, with 11 deals; Wealth Enhancement Group, with seven; and Carson Wealth, with six.

The big picture: Even as dealmaking accelerates, consolidation has not exhausted the supply of M&A targets.

The number of SEC-registered investment advisers rose to a record 16,544 in 2025, according to the Investment Adviser Association and Comply.

That leaves a deep pool of smaller firms for repeat buyers, even as fewer scaled platforms account for more of the industry's assets.

The intrigue: The RIA buyers getting bigger through rollups will eventually need exits of their own.

However, the largest platforms may be outgrowing the pool of strategic buyers that could acquire them outright.

And with Focus Financial now private, the sector has no clear public market comparable for RIA consolidators, leaving an IPO as a possibility rather than an established exit route.

What we're watching: Wealth Enhancement, a serial acquirer with nearly $160 billion in client assets, is reportedly drawing bids from Carlyle and Bain at a roughly $7 billion valuation, including debt.

The bottom line: RIA consolidation still has plenty of fuel, but its biggest firms have fewer obvious exit options.

1 big thing: The RIA rollup machine

Illustration of two people shaking hands on a giant stack of money. 

🎢 This week's fintech dealmaking had a little of everything, from a failed PayPal pursuit to big wealth-management and fresh fraud funding.

📊 PE firms are shopping financial-data businesses. Go deeper

💳 Stripe and Advent ended their $53B pursuit of PayPal. Go deeper

🦅 Victory Capital agreed to buy First Eagle from Genstar. Go deeper

🤝 Vanguard agreed to buy RIA platform Altruist. Go deeper

🗣️ Altruist CEO Jason Wenk said selling beats going public. Go deeper

🛡️ Socure raised $156M at a $5.2B valuation and acquired Fravity. Go deeper

🔎 Yardstik raised $30M for employee background checks. Go deeper

2. The week that was

Illustration of a row of laptops with binary code, money and circles.

👉 GO HERE TO CATCH UP on all the fintech deals this week.

Owner, an AI platform for restaurants and small businesses, raised $240m at a $2.3b valuation. Goldman Sachs led, joined by Meritech Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Jack Altman. Go deeper

Vistria Group agreed to buy a majority stake in Curi Capital, a Chicago-based RIA with over $14b in assets under advisement. Go deeper

BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) acquired the institutional trading business and related assets of NYDIG. Go deeper

3. 🚨 Deals deals deals

a collage of checks, a bar graph and a handshake

🤔 Goldman warned AI could erode investment bankers' reasoning. (CNBC)

⚡ Tether's $120M Uruguay mining project has collapsed. (The Block)

🏦 Itaú won preliminary approval for a U.S. charter. (PYMNTS)

💰 Wells Fargo is recruiting independent wealth advisers. (PYMNTS)

🇬🇧 U.K. ministers told the BofE to boost digital currency innovation. (FT)

💵 Dollar stablecoins are beating CBDCs. (Bloomberg)

Related: JPMorgan is weighing its own stablecoin. (WSJ)

🤖 Revolut launched its own euro stablecoin. (Bloomberg)

4. Credit score

Illustration of a scoreboard with lights that spell out Credit Score

Data: Echelon Partners; Chart: Ryan Lawler/Axios

After a choppy 2022 through 2024, RIA M&A has topped 100 announced deals for seven straight quarters.

By the numbers: Deal volume eased from Q1's record high, but the 120 transactions announced in Q2 still made it the busiest second quarter on record.

That put this year's first-half total at a record 262 deals.

5. Chart of the week

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August 29, 2026

1 big thing: The RIA rollup machine