RIA Wealth Management Network principals, Mark Moehlman and Laine Ainsworth, will join BPWA as managing directors and equity partners.
This marks the third deal in the last year and a half for BPWA, a national advisory “enterprise building partnership.”
Along with its $5.5 billion registered investment advisory parent firm Beacon Pointe, BPWA leverages economies of scale to give joining firms access to brand synergy, leverage of the brand for marketing, compliance and reporting, and scale. While BPWA also provides strategies to maximize enterprise value and a built-in succession plan for new partners, joining advisors maintain ownership and control over their firm’s destiny.
Beacon Pointe is being built to help maximize value and provide succession plan certainty for joining partners, according to a press release. This is an approach the firm says gives advisors a 7-10 year timetable to “position for an optimal valuation, succession scenario or both.”
For Moehlman and Ainsworth, the decision to join BPWA was not one they made lightly, or quickly. It took three years, reviewing numerous candidates and finally bringing in M&A advisory firm, Advice Dynamics Partners, to determine the best fit.
“And out of twenty options carefully, one might say painstakingly, reviewed, we chose Beacon Pointe because it offered us growth, operational support, liquidity and last but perhaps most importantly, a built-in succession plan,” said Moehlman and Ainsworth in a statement.
Matt Cooper, president of Beacon Pointe said that for many advisors considering their options, they may decide that aggregator or ‘roll-up’ firms are a “mirage.”
“It’s about business continuity after the advisor retires, or about accelerating organic growth, or finding a partner to help identify qualified candidates to join you – or all of the above,” he said.
“We’re not building to sell, we’re building to be the best financial advisory firm with the best partner firms, in the country.”
