Mercer Advisors, a nationwide RIA, sees gold in Southern California.
The company said Wednesday that it had acquired Epstein & White Financial, a wealth management firm in San Diego, California, that serves 1,300 affluent clients with assets of $740 million.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Denver, Colorado-based Mercer is majority owned by two private equity firms — $19 billion Oak Hill Capital Partners in New York and $17 billion Genstar Capital in San Francisco.
Privately-held Mercer, one of the largest RIAs and financial planning firms in the U.S., with more than 45 locations and $28 billion in client assets, has undergone breakneck growth through
Dave Welling, Mercer’s chief executive officer, said in a statement that the acquisition is “a significant strategic move” for the large RIA, whose Southern California clients have more than $5 billion in assets, nearly seven times’ EWF’s level. The deal includes EWF’s Retirement Income Solutions division. EWF has “over 20” team members who will be joining the Mercer Advisors’ team. A spokesman for Mercer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on whether all EWF employees would join Mercer.
EWF, also an RIA, opened its doors in 2013 and focuses on wealth management services for mass affluent and high net worth clients. Under founder and Chief Executive Officer Brad White, it has averaged organic growth of around 75% a year since 2015.
In a statement, White said that the growth meant that EWF “needed to partner with a fully institutionalized RIA that had built out fully-scaled middle and back office functionality.” He added that folding into Mercer will allow EWF to tap into the much larger RIA’s in-house family office services, including estate planning, tax consulting and return preparation and corporate trustee services.
Mercer Vice Chairman Dave Barton, who led the acquisition, said that the company believes that “we can take what Brad is doing in Southern California and syndicate his programs nationwide, adding more firepower to our already significant marketing and sales platform."
