Hightower Takes "Strategic Investment" In Colorado Wealth House

Tom Burroughes

24 August 2021

Chicago-based Hightower has made a “strategic investment” in a wealth management firm in Denver - Investment Security Group. The transaction adds to a range of moves by Hightower in recent months to expand across the US.

Investment Security Group, which has more than $800 million in assets under management, was founded in 1992.

As part of Hightower, Investment Security Group will tap into its business acceleration services, infrastructure and middle- and back-office services to drive growth, Hightower said in a statement.

Investment Security Group is led by chief executive Mitch Powers, chief financial officer Barbara Krause, chief compliance officer Marc Friedman, and chief marketing officer Odette Sahakian. It has 10 employees, including six advisors.

“Investment Security Group is a vibrant, second-generation wealth management business that is poised for expansion in a highly coveted geography. It has a strong management team, high client retention and a growth-minded culture,” Hightower chairman and CEO Bob Oros said.

The size of the financial transaction wasn’t disclosed.

In late July Hightower acquired Farr, Miller & Washington, a $2 billion wealth management firm based in Washington, DC with offices in Naples, Florida, and Devon, Pennsylvania. In June the firm won conditional regulatory approval to transform its Texas-based trust company into a nationally chartered trust company. In January this year Hightower made a strategic stake in New York-based Siller & Cohen Family Wealth Advisors, an $830 million wealth management firm in Rye Brook, New York.

The deals highlight a continued busy trend of mergers and acquisitions in the North American wealth management sector. DeVoe & Company, which tracks M&A deals in the RIA space, said earlier in July that there were 43 deals in the second quarter of this year, the fourth-largest deal-flow figure on record, following 58 transactions in Q1 and 48 in the final three months of 2020.

As of June 30, 2021, Hightower's assets under administration were about $125.2 billion and its assets under management were $101 billion.