The deal – financial terms of which were not disclosed – continues a pattern of North American wealth management activity.

MAI Capital Management, an RIA, has acquired R Karras Asset Management & Planning, aka Karras, a firm with $110 million of assets.

The financial terms of the deal – MAI’s 32nd since 2018 – were not disclosed. 

As a result of the transaction, MAI’s network covers 25 offices in the US, it said in a statement yesterday. 

Karras, which is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, has served the broader region for more than 35 years and has been led by founder and CEO Robert Karras. The firm holds financial, retirement, and estate planning, investments and asset management, risk management and insurance, and employee benefits and qualified retirement planning for businesses.

The deal continues a run of transactions in the North American wealth sector in recent years. Forces driving the trend include a desire by older advisors to plan their retirement and industry exit; acquirers want to build economies of scale amid rising costs and client expectations, and build market share, and enter new fields, amid a multi-trillion dollar intergenerational wealth transfer. Rising US interest rates in 2022 and 2023 - before apparently peaking - have taken some heat out of the M&A space, however.

Karras will adopt MAI’s brand identity and receive the internal infrastructure that MAI extends to all acquired firms, including HR, operations, and marketing resources. At MAI, Robert Karras will become senior wealth advisor and managing director.

Also based in Cleveland, MAI had total assets under management of $17.3 billion at the end of September last year. Rick Buoncore, managing partner, leads the firm.

US correspondent Charles Paikert discussed the M&A challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic in this video.