Sample report · wealth management m&a

50 Best RIA Acquirers

A real edition, 46 pages, generated from the live graph on September 29, 2026 for the brief below.

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The brief

We own a $900M AUM fee-only RIA in Colorado and want to sell a majority stake. Find the acquirers most likely to pay for our profile and who has done comparable deals.

763

RIA acquisitions since 2023

365

of firms $300M to $2.7B

of firms based in Colorado

acquirers ranked

The top five, as printed

Ranked on the firms each buyer acquired, never on what it says it buys

#	Acquirer	Fit	Deals	Comparable	In CO	Newest	RAUM
1	Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services, LLC	95.7	27	20	office	2026-09-14	$122.2B
2	Mercer Global Advisors Inc.	93.7	16	14	yes	2026-08-26	$84.4B
3	Waverly Advisors, LLC	93.7	19	12	yes	2026-09-24	$29.9B
4	Cerity Partners LLC	90.4	15	11	yes	2026-07-17	$161.7B
5	EP Wealth Advisors	90.3	13	11	yes	2026-08-07	$45.1B

What was refused

87 candidates screened out, with reasons

79 firms whose only succession was to their own business: a re-registration, not a deal
7 asset, institutional or other non-wealth managers, which a private client book does not fit
1 acquirer that has since left the SEC adviser roster
Any acquirer without a Form ADV card, or whose card reads back another CRD (none on this reading)

What DFX cannot see, stated

The limitations are printed, not buried

Fee-only status (Form ADV Item 5.E) and deal prices, multiples and terms are not on the record and are never estimated.
An absorption is read from advisors re-registering together, not from a closing; each card says which deals were sworn successions.
An acquired firm's size is its last filed RAUM, which can predate the deal by up to a year; 120 successions name no firm and cannot be sized.
Only the 75 acquirers leading on the deal record were read in full; an acquirer below that line is not ranked.

Payment up front. If the report is not useful for your stage, sector or market when delivered, DFX refunds it in full. Order the same report for your brief: 50 Best RIA Acquirers, $495.

Every report has a sample

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50 Best RIA Acquirers

Ranked on the firms each buyer acquired, never on what it says it buys

#	Acquirer	Fit	Deals	Comparable	In CO	Newest	RAUM
1	Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services, LLC	95.7	27	20	office	2026-09-14	$122.2B
2	Mercer Global Advisors Inc.	93.7	16	14	yes	2026-08-26	$84.4B
3	Waverly Advisors, LLC	93.7	19	12	yes	2026-09-24	$29.9B
4	Cerity Partners LLC	90.4	15	11	yes	2026-07-17	$161.7B
5	EP Wealth Advisors	90.3	13	11	yes	2026-08-07	$45.1B

87 candidates screened out, with reasons

79 firms whose only succession was to their own business: a re-registration, not a deal

7 asset, institutional or other non-wealth managers, which a private client book does not fit

1 acquirer that has since left the SEC adviser roster

Any acquirer without a Form ADV card, or whose card reads back another CRD (none on this reading)

The limitations are printed, not buried

Fee-only status (Form ADV Item 5.E) and deal prices, multiples and terms are not on the record and are never estimated.

An absorption is read from advisors re-registering together, not from a closing; each card says which deals were sworn successions.

An acquired firm's size is its last filed RAUM, which can predate the deal by up to a year; 120 successions name no firm and cannot be sized.

Only the 75 acquirers leading on the deal record were read in full; an acquirer below that line is not ranked.