1986: Ric and Jean Edelman found Edelman Financial Services.
1996: Financial Engines is born.
2005: Publicly-traded Sanders Morris Harris, an advisory firm founded by the former head of Prudential-Bache, buys a majority stake in Edelman Financial Services. In 2011, it changes the combined firm’s name to Edelman Financial Group, and Edelman becomes co-CEO. The move makes Edelman’s firm part of a publicly traded company.
2012: Lee Equity Partners buys Edelman Financial Group, which takes it private. The deal is Edelman’s first with private equity.
2015: Sanders Morris Harris
The lead founder of Edelman Financial Engines, the largest independent advisor in the country, has surprising lessons about selling his 'clients first' firm to private equity investors.
2015: Lee Equity Partners
2016: Warburg Pincus holds a majority stake in The Mutual Fund Store, which Financial Engines then acquires. It sells its stake in 2017, one year before Financial Engines is merged with Edelman’s legacy firm.
2018: Hellman & Friedman pays $3 billion for Financial Engines, the original robo advisor that at the time was the largest RIA. It takes that publicly-traded company private and merges it with Edelman’s firm. The blockbuster deal creates Edelman Financial Engines and turns Edelman’s roughly $800 million company into a $4.5 billion company overnight. Edelman says he “strongly urged” Hellman & Friedman to buy Financial Engines. Raffone becomes CEO of the new firm.
