The Californian firm is involved in putting regular reports out about the scale and detail of merger and acquisitions in North America's wealth management industry. And it has taken time out to talk about its own involvement in advising a corporate marriage.

ECHELON Partners, the Los Angeles-based investment bank and consultancy that tracks trends in wealth management mergers and acquisitions, has trumpeted its recent role in advising wealth firm Sullivan & Serwitz, recently sold to Cerity Partners.

Sullivan & Serwtiz was founded in 1989 and oversees $1.0 billion of client money. Its purchaser, Cerity Partners, is a US-registered financial advisor. 

The deal is part of a trend of M&A transactions that have included big names in the US sector over past months. The past 12 months witnessed large M&A marriages, such as the Charles Schwab/TD Ameritrade hook-up. Besides the Schwab/TD Ameritrade deal, other prominent agreements were: Warburg Pincus and Kestra Financial; Reverence Capital Partners and Advisor Group; Goldman Sachs and United Capital; Principal Financial and Wells Fargo; Envestnet and TXN, and MoneyGuidePro. Deals have continued in 2020. For example, Fiduciary Trust Company International, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Franklin Resources, said it had agreed to acquire Athena Capital Advisors - a registered investment advisor - with $6.0 billion in assets under management.

A few days before the Sullivan & Serwtiz deal Cerity Partners merged with New York-based wealth management firm EMM Wealth, a firm overseeing about $3 million in AuM. EMM Wealth is led by Lloyd Abramowitz, co-CEO, David Aaron, co-CEO and chief investment officer, and Thomas O'Brien, chief financial officer. The firm consists of 36 employees, including investment, tax and planning professionals who provide holistic wealth management services - investment advisory, tax and financial planning, trust and estate planning, and philanthropic planning.

This publication asked Cerity Partners about its own acquisition strategy. 

"Cerity Partners welcomes the opportunity to grow organically and through acquisitions. When assessing growth, we focus keenly on adding partners and colleagues who believe in what we do – putting clients first and delivering objective financial advice across a variety of services. Cultural fit is extremely important to our organization. We expect the wealth industry to see continued momentum in M&A activity," it said.