Focus Financial Partners plans to fold another pair of RIAs into its network of partner firms.
The private equity-backed RIA consolidator said Friday that it had entered a transaction agreement with $1 billion, Boca Raton, Fla.-based Steinberg Global Asset Management. Steinberg Global Asset Management will join Focus partner firm Colony Group.
Focus is also set to acquire Ruston, La.-based advisor Matthew F. Massingale, who previously ran his own lifestyle practice, Massingale & Co. He will join partner firm Summit Financial Wealth Advisors.
Financial terms of the deals, which are expected to close in the second quarter of 2019, were not disclosed. Massingale's assets under management were also not disclosed.
Boston-based Colony Group, one of Focus’ biggest partner firms, managed around $6.3 billion as of December 2018, according to a form ADV filed with the SEC.
The firm said that it would add Steinberg Global Asset Management co-founder Richard Steinberg as its chief market strategist and a member of its investment committee.
‘Steinberg Global Asset Management brings Colony deep investment expertise, further bolstering the firm’s investment management capabilities, and provides a scalable entry into the Southeast Florida market,’ Focus chief executive Rudy Adolf said in a statement.
Massingale was previously affiliated with Commonwealth Financial Network, a hybrid RIA network which oversaw around $161 billion through its advisory and brokerage channels as of December 2018. Lafayette, La.-based Summit Financial Wealth Advisors managed around $893 million as of February, according to a form ADV. The firm plans to use its purchase of Massingale’s business to open a fourth office in Ruston.
Focus said that Massingale would use his affiliation with Focus through Summit as part of a succession plan for his clients. Adolf has cited RIA succession planning as a key driver of his KKR and Stone Point-backed firm’s growth trajectory.
‘Our support of inter-generational transfer of RIAs is a substantial future growth opportunity,’ Adolf said during the firm’s fourth quarter earnings conference call in February.
The deals with Steinberg Global Asset Management and Massingale are Focus’ eighth and ninth purchases of RIAs in 2019. It has also purchased several foreign wealth advisory businesses as well as a handful of business management firms.
On Monday, Focus also continued its international expansion as it said it would purchase UK-based business management firm Skeet Kaye Hopkins and merge it into one of its partners, US-based business management firm Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman.
