Focus Financial Partners is moving to have its Colony Group advisory unit absorb its longtime partner, Buckingham Strategic Wealth.
Focus, an RIA aggregator based in New York, announced at its semi-annual partners meeting on Monday that it plans to roll St. Louis-based Buckingham into its Colony Group advisor business. Buckingham Strategic Wealth, which had more than $30 billion in assets under management or administration by the end of March, has had a partnership with Focus since 2007.
Once merged, the two firms will have more than $50 billion under management, nearly 1,200 employees, more than 90 offices and tens of thousands of clients, according to a statement from Focus. Focus has taken some of its larger subsidiaries and deemed them "hubs" that will eventually incorporate some of its smaller RIAs.
"The combined firm's scale underscores and accelerates the ongoing evolution we are seeing in the wealth management space to cultivate better opportunities for clients and advisors and to offer them outstanding capabilities and services," Focus and Colony CEO Michael Nathanson said in the statement.
Running the newly merged company will be Adam Birenbaum, currently the CEO of Buckingham. Birenbaum will also continue overseeing the firm's sister company, Buckingham Strategic Partners, which runs a turnkey asset management program. That will allow Nathanson to drop his CEO title for Colony while remaining the top executive at Focus.
"It is a dream come true for Buckingham to be able to take part in exactly that kind of transformational opportunity," Birenbaum said in a statement.
Focus Financial Partners is one of the more active aggregators in the wealth management industry. Its partner firms have completed more than 270 mergers and prominent hires since its founders Rudy Adolf,
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