Field note · August 2026

RIA consolidation isn’t about scale — it’s about succession

The headline number is always the same: RIA M&A hit a record 466 deals in 2025, up more than a quarter from the year before. The trade press reads that as a scale story — big platforms rolling up small shops, AUM consolidating into fewer hands, the usual private-equity arithmetic. That reading isn’t wrong. It’s just not the part that matters if you’re the one making the introduction.

Underneath the roll-up narrative is a much quieter, much larger problem: most independent advisors built a book of clients and never built a plan to hand it to anyone. The typical RIA founder is well into his career. His clients trust him personally, not his firm’s brand. When he stops showing up, the AUM doesn’t automatically follow the buyer — it follows whoever the clients trust next.

Acquirers aren’t buying assets under management. They’re buying the two years it would take to earn that trust from scratch.

That’s why every quarter of 2025 topped 100 deals for the first time ever — not because platforms suddenly wanted more AUM, but because they finally understood that AUM without succession is a melting asset. A book with no plan is worth less every year the founder ages, whether or not a deal ever happens.

Outsiders price these deals off AUM multiples. The acquirers who actually win the good ones price them off something else: whether the founder is willing to stay two or three years, introduce the buyer’s team personally, and let the trust transfer in person instead of on paper. That’s not a financing problem or a legal problem. It’s an introduction problem, made worse by the fact that most founders don’t know who the right two or three buyers even are.

The connector’s job in this market isn’t sourcing AUM. It’s matching a founder who’s honest about not having a plan to an acquirer who’s honest about needing more than a spreadsheet — before the clients start asking where he went.

— Hertas Asmantas routes buyers, sellers, and capital across lower-middle-market B2B, wealth management, and private equity deals.