Focus Financial on track for ‘successful’ year for RIA M&A: Adolf

Focus Financial Partners Inc. reported Thursday that it had closed or announced 24 registered investment adviser transactions so far this year.

That tallies up to a very good year for RIA mergers and acquisitions, although not as spectacular as last year, Focus Financial’s founder and CEO Rudy Adolf said in an interview on Thursday.

“It’s been one of our most successful M&A years, but it won’t be like 2021, which was the best in the firm’s history,” Adolf said. “Last year, we did 38 RIA transactions.” He added that more deals would likely be announced before the end of the year.

Focus Financial Partners, which launched in 2004, is one of the leading RIA aggregators in the financial advice industry. It did an initial public offering in 2018 and is an industry bellwether of sorts.

While deal making has slowed at Focus Financial Partners, the RIA industry is on track to hit another record number of mergers and deals this year, according to the latest report from DeVoe & Co., an industry consultant.

In the past, Adolf has likened the prices that some competing aggregators were paying for RIAs to “drunken sailors” on a binge. “In 2021, there was some aggressive players out there,” he said. “It was amateur hour, but it doesn’t affect us because we hold steady through good times and bad.”

Meanwhile, Focus Financial Partners reported total revenues for the third quarter of $519.9 million, up 14.4% when compared to the same period last year.

Revenues from partner RIA firms acquired over the last 12 months accounted for $48.4 million of the increase, according to the companny. The remaining $16.9 million resulted from growth in wealth management fees at Focus Financial’s existing partners, which includes the effect of completed mergers.

[More: Big firms propelled soaring profits for RIAs in 2021]