The M&A carousel in North American wealth management keeps humming.

Mercer Global Advisors continued its run of wealth management purchases by buying Houston, Texas-based Republic Wealth Advisors, a firm overseeing about $230 million. 

Republic is co-owned by Frederick M Hanish, Kenneth J Landgraf, David H Levy, Patrick T Moore, and a senior client advisor who will also be joining the Mercer Advisors team along with other Republic staff. The firm, founded in 2001, is also present in Austin, Texas, and Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Hanish has more than 35 years of industry experience; he authored the book Three Generations from the Outhouse, and wrote the forward for The Wealth Management Edge: Unlocking the Wealth Management Secrets of America’s Most Successful Families. Landgraf has appeared on CNBC and Fox Business News and has been interviewed by national media including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Radio, TheStreet.com, CNNMoney.com, and SmartMoney magazine. Levy has also been interviewed and quoted by CNNMoney.com, Kiplinger’s, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and foreign-language media in Asia and Europe.

FP Transitions’ M&A team, led by James Fisher, JD, supported Republic through the acquisition process. FP Transitions offers M&A, valuation and analytics services for the wealth management industry.

A few days previously, Mercer acquired Adam Financial Associates, a firm based in Boca Raton, Florida with $190 million of assets under management. In November, the firm bought A L Hewitt, a Californian business.

The transaction is part of a trend of wealth industry M&A that this publication has noted in recent months, driven by firms’ desire for scale in an increasingly complex and regulated environment, as well as by a desire by businesses to acquire support in areas such as financing and technology. Groups such as ECHELON Partners have tracked a busy trend of industry consolidation, driven partly by rising regulatory burdens requiring increased economies of scale. The rise of new firms also generates business for organizations offering much of the mid- and back-office “plumbing” for independent small businesses. Firms in this space include Dynasty Financial Partners, Kestra and LPL Financial.