Two firms on opposite sides of the US have joined forces to provide clients - including wealth managers - business valuation services, advice on M&A deal structures and succession planning strategies.

New York-based Park Sutton Advisors and California-based Advice Dynamics Partners have linked up to capitalize on the growing need among wealth managers for strategic advisory services in M&A and other related areas.

PSA provides M&A advisory and investment banking services to small and mid-sized wealth managers, asset managers, broker-dealers and fund administrators. ADP provides M&A advisory, succession planning and valuation services to wealth managers. 

The alliance means that they can combine their respective areas of expertise and serve RIAs – particularly those with between $500 million and $10 billion in AuM – coast-to-coast.

PSA principals Steven Levitt and Jaime Carvallo and ADP chief executive David Selig will work together on select M&A transactions, and valuation and consulting projects.

“There is a great deal of ‘noise’ in our industry with regard to valuations, deal structure, and succession planning,” said Levitt. “In addition to offering a unified cross-country front to help our clients, we will combine our voices and seek to educate firms with truthful analysis about the opportunities and challenges that they will encounter as their strategic aspirations develop.”

“After having the opportunity to work together on certain deals, it became abundantly clear that ADP and PSA share a common view of how clients must be served and that our methods and approaches complement each other really well,” said Selig. “Placing the highest emphasis on confidentiality, a second-to-none process for execution, a focus on both the financial and cultural aspects of every deal – this alliance will greatly benefit our existing and future clients.”

The move comes at a time when the pace of M&A activity in the wealth management space shows no sign of waning due to factors such as an aging advisor workforce and firms looking to leverage technology, partnerships and infrastructure to improve economies of scale.

According a report by Pershing in May, one in four advisory firms has been involved in a transaction in the past five years, during which time nearly half (48 per cent) of all deals involved RIAs transacting with each other. Although the 42 “real deal” transactions in 2014 is slightly less than the 48 recorded in 2013, the numbers represent a largely consistent level of M&A activity over recent years.

All this creates the need for M&A advice, and BizEquity is an example of a firm in the space that set out in 2010 to give institutions and wealth managers real time insight into the fundamental question of "how much is my business worth?"