Beacon Pointe acquires $1 billion YorkBridge Wealth

One of the lively registered funding advisory agency acquirers made its greatest deal of the 12 months to this point, establishing its first location in New York Metropolis within the course of.

Beacon Pointe Advisors bought New York and Bridgehampton-based YorkBridge Wealth Companions, which can carry three monetary advisors and three different workers managing greater than $1 billion in shopper belongings underneath founding RIA house owners Carrie Gallaway and Andrew Stern to the customer, the firms said April 17. The events had accomplished the deal for an undisclosed quantity two days earlier.

Gallaway and Stern every spent tenures of 15 years with wirehouses previous to launching their impartial RIA with about $700 million in shopper belongings in 2016, they famous in an interview. After passing the milestone of $1 billion in shopper belongings final 12 months, they mirrored on the accomplishment by interested by what it’d take to get to $2 billion, or from there to $4 billion sometime, Stern stated. KKR-backed Beacon Pointe, which relies in Newport Seaside, California, match their wants as an advisory apply serving primarily excessive web price purchasers.

“We have been fairly lucky to have been in a position to develop our enterprise pretty considerably over the past a number of years,” Stern stated. “Scale actually issues. We thought lengthy and onerous about one of the best strategy for us to attain our objectives in rising the agency.”

With 9 offers introduced final 12 months, Beacon Pointe tied RIA competitor Captrust and insurance coverage brokerage HUB Worldwide for the sixth highest complete within the trade, according to investment bank and consulting firm Echelon Partners. Solely Mercer Advisors (20), Wealth Enhancement Group (14), Artistic Planning (13), Mariner Wealth Advisors (12) and Benefit Monetary Advisors (11) unveiled extra transactions. 

Dealmakers have begun seeing some influence from inflation and worries a couple of potential recession emanating within the bigger economic system, Captrust Senior Director Rush Benton stated final week in a panel hosted by consulting firm Advisor Growth Strategies.

The pipeline has “modified somewhat bit with the decline within the monetary markets final 12 months and the rise in rates of interest,” Benton stated. “I believe personal fairness has gotten extra nervous than they had been, which suggests they’ve elevated the scrutiny on properties which can be being purchased, and underneath what phrases. And I believe that, if I needed to predict one thing for 2023, I’d say that that development will proceed.”

Beacon Pointe topped $26 billion in shopper belongings underneath advisement with the acquisition of YorkBridge, which adopted one other advisory team for the agency within the bigger tri-state area.

“We’re thrilled to formally symbolize Beacon Pointe in New York Metropolis and Lengthy Island,” Gallaway stated in a press release. “We now have acknowledged an expansive and rising want for complete wealth planning companies within the larger New York space.”

Publicly traded international funding agency and leveraged buyout pioneer KKR invested in Beacon Pointe in 2021, when the RIA acquirer had $20 billion in shopper belongings and have become the third agency of its type that 12 months to obtain a valuation of at the least $1 billion. Beacon Pointe retained greater than 50% management of the agency’s fairness underneath the deal. That transaction additionally adopted KKR exiting its prior investment in Focus Monetary Companions. Clayton, Dubilier & Rice set the enterprise worth of Focus at greater than $7 billion in its deal earlier this 12 months to take the agency personal.