Raymond James to acquire $46B Clark Capital Management

Raymond James is making one of its biggest acquisition in years by scooping up Clark Capital Management Group, a firm with $46 billion under management.

Raymond James announced Thursday it will close on its planned acquisition of Philadelphia-based Clark Capital Management in the third quarter of this year. The purchase price was not announced.

Clark Capital, founded in 1986, provides multiple-asset and custom-built portfolios and mutual funds to financial advisors and clients. It has a dedicated high net worth team that works directly with advisors.

Once part of Raymond James, Clark Capital will maintain its own brand, leadership team, investment resources and service offerings. It's joining Raymond James Investment Management, Raymond James' global asset management company.

Clark Capital will be one of several "boutique" brands within Raymond James Investment Management. The others are Chartwell Investment Partners, ClariVest Asset Management, Cougar Global Investments, Eagle Asset Management, Reams Asset Management and Scout Investments.

"The acquisition underscores our commitment to building a leading global asset manager that provides a broad range of innovative investment solutions," Raymond James Chief Operating Officer Scott Curtis said in a statement. "Within our multi-boutique structure, Clark Capital is well positioned for accelerated growth, and Raymond James Investment Management will better serve the evolving needs of financial advisors and their clients."

Many of Raymond James' broker-dealer competitors have used mergers and acquisitions to bring in both more advisors and assets under management "inorganically." Most notably, LPL Financial has relied heavily on a series of purchases to push its AUM to roughly $2.3 trillion and its advisor headcount past 32,000. The latest deals came with the acquisition of Commonwealth Financial Network for $2.7 billion.

By contrast, Raymond James — which has recruited large numbers of Commonwealth advisors who decided against going to LPL — has completed relatively few M&A transactions in recent years. CEO Paul Shoukry has expressed general skepticism about M&A, suggesting that asking prices for purchase prospects are running too high.

Raymond James, Shoukry said in an earnings call in April, will "not stretch on valuation, especially if we do not have conviction that we could generate strong risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders at those prices."

Raymond James declined to comment further on its plans to purchase Clark Capital Management. In a statement, Shoukry said, "Clark Capital's mission of offering holistic investment solutions and being a trusted partner to financial advisors completely aligns with Raymond James' ethos and commitment to clients. Our focus remains on deploying capital by identifying quality opportunities, like Clark Capital, for our continued growth."

Many of the firm's notable recent purchases date to the early 2020s and were made under former CEO Paul Reilly. 

Under Reilly, Raymond James bought Charles Stanley, an investment management firm in London, in 2022. It followed that purchase that same year by buying SumRidge Partners, a fixed-income electronic market maker in Jersey City, and TriState Capital Bank, a commercial and private bank out of Pittsburgh. Last year, Raymond James took a majority ownership stake in GreensLedge Holdings, an investment bank in New York.

— This article has been updated to include information about recent Raymond James merger and acquisition deals and provide further details about Clark Capital Management Group.