Wells Fargo, Merrill, Cerity ink large recruiting, M&A deals

Wells Fargo, Merrill lead a multibillion-dollar week: Advisor Moves

January 9, 2026 12:50 PM

Wells Fargo leads off our first weekly summary of recruiting moves and mergers and acquisitions with big teams pulled from its rivals Merrill and Citi.

But Wells isn't the only firm to ink some big recent deals. Joining this week are Merrill and RBC, while Cerity Partners, Mercer Advisors and EP Wealth Advisors all made notable acquisitions, and AmeriFlex Group welcomed a new minority owner. Read on for the details.

Wells Fargo pulls $1.8B team from Merrill

Wells Fargo is bolstering its division for independent advisors with a prominent private wealth team recruited from Merrill in New York.

An 11-person ex-Merrill team has founded Infinity Private Wealth under Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, or FiNet, the firm's independent channel. The team had previously managed $1.8 billion for Merrill in Long Island.

Infinity Private Wealth is led by Gianluca Palermo and Nicholas Frangas and includes the advisors Charles Donnelly, Marc Stenzler, Sheena Marr, John Mulligan, Vincent Parziale and Thomas Houlihan.

Palermo has been in the industry since the late 1990s and spent more than seven years at JPMorgan before moving to Merrill in 2015. Frangas started in 2000, quickly joining UBS. He moved to Merrill in 2007, then to JPMorgan in 2012 before rejoining Merrill in 2015.

Both Wells Fargo and Merrill's parent company, Bank of America, have ceased publicly announcing their advisor headcounts. The last time the firms released their numbers, Wells Fargo had roughly 12,000 and Bank of America had 18,000 spread among Merrill, its private bank and its retail bank branches.

Wells Fargo draws advisors with $1.2B from Citi

Wells Fargo is separately bolstering its presence in north Texas with the recruitment of a prominent advisor duo.

Paul Cooke and Jake Trousdale are joining Wells in Dallas. The two had previously managed $1.2 billion in total at Citi.

Cooke and Trousdale are joining Wells Fargo Advisors' Private Client Group, the firm's main brokerage division. Cooke started his career in the early 1990s and landed at Raymond James in 1998 after stints at various firms. He moved to RBC in 2004, JPMorgan in 2008 and then Citi in 2013. Trousdale started at JPMorgan in 2003 and also moved to Citi in 2013.

Merrill recruits team with $805M AUM from UBS

Merrill is joining the long list of firms recruiting from UBS with a three-advisor team in Rhode Island.

Robert Procaccianti, Jared Tack and Doug Bennet are joining Merrill at its offices in Providence, Rhode Island. They had previously managed $805 million under the name Harbor Light Wealth Management at UBS and generated $3.3 million in annual revenue.

Procaccianti had been at Merrill once before, having started his career there in 2002. He moved to UBS in 2008. Tack started at UBS in 2017, and Bennet became part of UBS after his original firm, Kidder Peabody, was first sold to PaineWebber in 1994 and then PaineWebber was sold to UBS in 2000.

At Merrill, the team is part of the firm's Suburban Boston and Rhode Island Market, which is led by Market Executive Allen Jones.

UBS has struggled with advisor departures since announcing changes to its advisor-compensation policies in late 2024. The firm ended its third quarter with 5,779 advisors in its Americas unit, which includes Canada and Latin America. That was up slightly from the previous quarter, but down 3.5% from the third quarter of 2024.

RBC draws teams with more than $1.2B from UBS, Morgan Stanley

RBC's U.S. wealth management division is pushing further into southern California and Florida with teams pulled from UBS and Morgan Stanley.

The Fogarty Hernandez Wealth Management Group is joining RBC Wealth Management-U.S. in Los Angeles. The team is led by the advisors John Fogarty and Eric Hernandez and had overseen $660 million at UBS. Fogarty started his career in the early 1990s and joined Dean Witter in 1997, the same year that firm merged with Morgan Stanley. He moved to UBS in 2009. Hernandez started at Morgan Stanley in 2003 and moved to UBS in 2009.

Meanwhile, the Thomasco Group, led by Edward Thomasco, is joining RBC's U.S. wealth management division in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The team had previously managed $646 million in client assets at Morgan Stanley.

Thomasco started his career at Lehman Brothers in 1990 and moved three years later to Smith Barney, which was partly acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2009. Joining him at RBC are Michele Cianfrone, vice president and senior business associate; and Taylor Boyle, senior financial associate.

Cerity Partners buys $3B SOL Capital Management

The aggressive RIA acquirer Cerity Partners is boosting its asset tally by billions with its purchase of Maryland-based firm called SOL Capital Management.

Cerity announced Monday that it had bought Rockville, Maryland-based SOL Capital, a firm managing roughly $3 billion for individual clients and institutions, according to its latest Form ADV. It was founded in 1987 and is now run by CEO and Chairman Rajmiel Odinec. SOL Capital Management will now operate under the Cerity Partners name.

The deal follows Cerity Partners' announcement on Monday of its purchase of Austin Private Wealth, an RIA in Austin, Texas, with $1.4 billion under management. Cerity was founded in 2009. Its owners include the private equity firms Genstar Capital, which has a majority ownership stake, and Lightyear Capital, which has a minority stake.

Mercer Advisors acquires two firms with $905M in AUM

The larger RIA consolidator Mercer Advisors capped its most active year for M&A deals to date with the acquisition of a pair of advisory firms with a total of just over $900 million under management.

Poterack Capital Advisors, a Jackson, Wyoming-based firm with $265 million under management; and Long Run Wealth Advisors, a Lake Placid, New York-based firm with $640 million under management, have joined Mercer. The acquisitions, which both closed in 2025, brought Mercer's M&A tally for 2025 to 18 completed deals.

That was the most on record for the firm. The $10 billion in client assets brought in from those deals pushed Mercer's AUM total to $92 billion.

Mercer is one of the most active acquirers in an industry increasingly dominated by large RIA aggregators built up through M&A deals. Of Mercer's two latest additions, Poterack Capital Advisors is a firm that relies heavily on technology to provide asset and wealth management and tax assistance to clients in 30 states. It was founded in 2001 by Ryan Poterack, who now holds the title of CEO.

Meanwhile, Long Run Wealth Advisors is run by the principals Kevin Brady and Lynn Magnus and works with clients throughout upper New York State and Vermont. The firm was started in 2015, and its name refers to the seven-person teams' desire to help clients over the "long run."

Mercer has its headquarters in Denver and more than 1,400 employees in 100 offices throughout the U.S. It manages $90 billion in client assets and is majority owned by the private equity firms Oak Hill Capital, Genstar Capital and Altas Partners.

EP Wealth Advisors scoops up firm with $730M in assets

The large RIA acquirer EP Wealth is lengthening its string of recent purchases with the addition of a prominent RIA in Arizona.

EP Wealth has bought Capital Insight Partners, a firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, with $730 million under management. Capital Insight was founded in 2008 and works with individual clients and employer-sponsored retirement plans. Nine members of the firm are joining EP Wealth, including its co-founder, Susan Anastasiadis, who will take on the title of senior vice president at EP Wealth.

The Capital Insight team will become part of EP Wealth's Arizona region, which is led by the regional directors M.J. Nodilo and Adrian Larson. The acquisition marks EP Wealth's first for 2026, following nine last year.

EP Wealth has its headquarters in Torrance, California, and 63 offices in 23 states. The firm, with $40.5 billion in assets under management, announced in October that it had sold a minority ownership stake in itself to the private equity firm Ares Management. Even before that, it had sold a separate minority stake to the PE firm Berkshire Partners but remains mostly owned by its managers and advisors.

AmeriFlex Group sells minority state to Cambridge Investment Research

AmeriFlex Group, a large wealth management practice that announced its departure from Osaic this summer, is raising capital with sale of a minority stake in itself to Cambridge Investment Research.

The deal, whose terms weren't disclosed, will bolster AmeriFlex's SuccessionFully offering, which helps advisors who are nearing retirement age sell their practices to younger colleagues. With the average age of advisors on the rise, a big concern in the industry is making sure older professionals will be fairly compensated for the businesses they built over their careers when they retire.

AmeriFlex reported having nearly $9.4 billion in assets under management and 166 employees who perform advisory functions in its latest Form ADV, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month. Since its departure from Osaic in June, it has been using Cambridge Investment Research as its affiliated broker-dealer.

The firm's now deepened partnership with Cambridge will give AmeriFlex "momentum to expand our succession platform nationally," Chief Operating Officer Jesse Kurrasch said in a statement.

AmeriFlex Group was founded in 2019 and bills itself as the "home for hybrids," meaning firms that have both an advisory arm and a traditional brokerage. AmeriFlex had previously been part of SagePoint Financial, one of nine formerly separate broker-dealers now operating under the Osaic brand.