By Greg Bartalos

Mergers and acquisitions have been a central theme in wealth management for the past decade and activity should remain brisk, according to Fidelity Investments. In 2015 Fidelity counted 89 M&A transactions involving registered investment advisors with $130 billion in assets involved. Last year, it said there were 233 RIA deals with nearly $670 billion of assets in play.

Serial acquirer Mercer Advisors has ridden the M&A wave to great success, tallying more than 100 acquisitions since 2016. Mercer announced its ninth, and most recent, purchase of the year last week when it acquired Family Wealth Planning Group, a $1.2 billion Florida advisory firm that was previously affiliated with Raymond James. "We expect 2025 to be one of our biggest years yet for M&A," a Mercer spokesman said, noting that the firm planned to onboard 15 to 20 partner firms this year.

Mercer's chief executive has overseen most of this rapid growth. "When I joined Mercer, we were just under $10 billion in assets under management, a couple hundred employees, and we've seen significant growth since then to get to $70 billion today," CEO Dave Welling tells me in the latest Barron's Advisor The Way Forward podcast .

"I've been around the independent registered investment advisor industry for almost 30 years," Welling says. "I've been an advocate and a supporter of advisors all over the country. I was with Schwab for 12 years, then had an eight-year stint in wealth technology from just shortly after the 2008, 2009 financial crisis up until 2017, when I joined Mercer Advisors."

In this podcast, Welling discusses why acquired firms should share Mercer's vision and values, describes the importance of RIAs having authenticity in local markets, and explains why employee ownership is tremendously beneficial for both Mercer and its employees.

Denver-based Mercer ranked first (excluding seven mega RIA firms) in Barron's 2024 Top 100 RIA Firms ranking and has been in the top 10 eight times in the past decade. Stay tuned next month when this year's ranking will be announced.

Below are highlights from our conversation, which have been edited for clarity (you can listen to the podcast and read the full transcript here):

The importance of sharing a vision and values with partner firms. "When we have conversations with firms, it's both are we a match for them and are they a match for us? People ask all the time, because we've done acquisitions all over the country, 'Are you focused on the Carolinas? Are you focused on Massachusetts? Are you focused on certain places?' And our answer is, 'We're focused on vision and values.'" Welling says that means serving as fiduciaries and putting financial planning front and center.

Questions that Mercer commonly asks prospective partner firms. "We're asking questions from the Mercer side as to what's challenging for you? Where do you need help? What do you wish you had that you didn't have? What service, what offering, what capability, what opportunity would be attractive to you? We're trying to tune in the conversation to exactly how this can be additive. We're not interested in just buying up firms for the sake of buying up firms. We're looking at it as a way to extend the execution of our vision and mission, which is to be the best financial planning firm in the country that's operating under a fiduciary standard for our clients."

How Mercer often helps partner firms. "What we like to hear, and it's very common, is firms are looking for more services and value to add to their clients. They are looking for opportunities for the talent on their team to grow their own careers and to ascend. And they want to make sure that they find somebody who shares the same values as them. The services could include things like, we have an embedded tax team, we have an embedded estate planning team, we have a robust investment offering. It can be different things for different firms, but they often don't have some of those services or haven't extended them as far as we have."

What partner firms most often seek from Mercer. "Most frequently they're looking to hand over quite a few hats of the responsibility of running the firm, dealing with technology, dealing with compliance, dealing with performance reviews, because most of them, when they got into the business in the first place, it was to serve clients and they have a passion for serving clients and to grow. They're looking for somebody who can take over all that stuff. But today, it's a lot more than just back office help and administrative help. It's really amplifying the work that they can do for their clients and providing opportunities for employees. And I think that's where we find great unions and a very consistent message from what sellers are actually looking for."

The importance of possessing authenticity in local markets. "[Potential partners] often have expertise, they often have capabilities, and most importantly in communities that we may not have a presence in, they have authenticity. They have the local knowledge, the local presence, the local involvement in nonprofits, boards in the community that we couldn't create overnight. We could find the talent and send the talent into their community, but we wouldn't have that authenticity and be able to tune into the unique needs of the market. That's what they're bringing to the table in terms of capability, knowledge, wisdom, and their legacies."

The benefits of granting equity to employees. "It's just so powerful. It can be transformative to people's careers. You need to educate the employees that you're granting equity to." Welling adds that offering equity to employees in a company with more than 100 locations across the country gives them strong incentives to collaborate with each other.

Write to Greg Bartalos at greg.bartalos@barrons.com

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August 05, 2025 15:36 ET (19:36 GMT)

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