Osaic buying CW Advisors, a firm with $13.5B fee-only AUM

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

Fresh off consolidating nine previously acquired broker-dealers under its brand, Osaic is embarking on its biggest M&A deal in years.

The independent broker-dealer announced Tuesday that it's buying CW Advisors, an advisory firm in Boston with $13.5 billion in client assets and 140 employees in 17 offices. The deal, whose terms weren't immediately disclosed, marks the sale of one private-equity owned firm to another receiving substantial private equity support.

Audax Private Equity, a Boston-based firm with $19 billion under management, bought a majority stake in CW Advisors in June 2023. Osaic, formerly Advisor Group, has been majority-owned by the private investment firm Reverence Capital Partners since 2019. 

CW Advisors was founded in 2009 (originally using the name Congress Wealth Management) as a specialist in acquiring fee-only firms, whose advisors do not charge commissions but rather make money chiefly from fees set at a percentage of the assets they have under management. Osaic said in a press release announcing the deal that CW Advisors will retain its name and methods of serving clients, remain operationally independent and continue to work with clients as a standalone RIA.

The private equity piece

Osaic CEO and president Jamie Price said in an interview Tuesday that the acquisition deal should provide CW Advisors with greater stability.

"They, I think, were recognizing that Audax was not going to be a long-term shareholder by virtue of who they are and the fact that they needed to have a liquidity event," Price said. "And we're a more permanent, I think, source of capital, and someone who is in control of our destiny longer term because of our size and scale."

Private equity has been driving much of the consolidation seen in wealth management in recent years. In a report looking at wealth management M&A in 2024 , the industry-tracking investment bank Echelon Partners found private equity firms played a direct or indirect role in just over 70% of the 366 transactions it logged for that year — setting a record.

Peter Nesvold, the managing partner of the consultant and investment bank Nesvold Capital Partners, noted that high interest rates and concerns about the economy have led to a slowdown in private equity-backed deals in many other industries. Osaic's plans to buy CW Advisors is yet more proof that private owners in wealth management are outliers.

"The fact that [Audax Private Equity] was able to exit in a short period of time indicates how strong the underlying market is."

"This partnership provides us with access to permanent capital that aligns with our long-term vision and the needs of our clients and advisors," CW Advisors CEO Scott Dell'Orfano said in a statement.

Price noted that CW Advisors has completed 14 M&A transactions of its own over the past several years.

"They've done a very good job acquiring firms who have found their platform to be attractive," Price said. "And so we want to continue to support them in doing that, while at the same time, they've had good organic growth inside their advisor force and expanded into the family-office business over the last two years, and are growing that business as well very nicely."

READ MORE:
CW Advisors adds $1.2B fee-only RIA, sending total AUM over $10B
$1B team exits Osaic for a more boutique brokerage
Osaic contends with 'bumps and bruises' on consolidation journey
6 ways independent wealth management firms are consolidating

Osaic builds out its direct employee channel

Osaic, for its part, has more than $700 billion in assets under administration and affiliations with more than 11,000 financial professionals. It completed in January a large internal consolidation it called its "Journey to One," bringing under its single brand the former broker-dealers American Portfolios, FSC Securities, Infinex Investments, Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial, Securities America, Triad Advisors, Woodbury Financial Services and Lincoln Financial Group's former wealth management business.

By joining Osaic, CW Advisors will gain access to many of the services the larger firm has built up for working high net worth and ultrahigh net worth clients. Those include the trust specialist Premier Trust — which was acquired through its purchase of the Ladenburg Thalman group of five independent broker-dealers in 2020 — and the insurance and annuity specialist Highland Capital Brokerage.

The hands-off pledges Osaic is making in acquisition of CW Advisors bear many resemblances to similar promises its independent broker-dealer rival LPL Financial has made in its own recently announced plans to buy Commonwealth Financial Network later this year for $2.7 billion. LPL executives have repeatedly said they plan to maintain Commonwealth essentially as a standalone firm, with its brand and business model, under the larger LPL umbrella.

CW Advisors is joining Osaic's Osaic Advisors unit, which is meant for advisors who want to be direct employees of the firm rather than independent contractors. Earlier this year, Osaic also added Payant Wealth Management Group, a registered investment advisor in Tampa, Florida, with $360 million under management, to its channel for direct employees.

Osaic noted that CW Advisors custodies its clients' assets — or holds them for safekeeping — at both Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab. Many of CW Advisors' new clients also come through those two custodial firms' large referral networks, which Osaic called a "compelling feature."

Price said the CW Advisors deal ensures Osaic has a strong affiliation option for fee-only advisors. Like many wealth managers, Osaic seeks to give advisors who might be considering joining it great leeway to set up and run their practices as they see fit.

"Obviously the RIA business is going to go through its own consolidation over the next three to five years, just like the wirehouses and the independent broker-dealers have done," Price said. "And we think what will emerge are large-scale independent wealth firms. And — some — will do that flexibly across affiliation models and the whole addressable market of wealth."

— This article has been updated with quotes from Osaic CEO and president Jamie Price and further insight from industry experts.