Choreo Makes First Acquisition Under CEO Jason Van de Loo
Choreo, the registered investment advisor created in 2022 when private equity group Parthenon Capital lifted out the wealth management business of accounting firm RSM, has acquired the assets of Northeast Financial Group and Herbein Financial Group, Pennsylvania-based RIAs with $1.3 billion in combined assets.
Choreo first made the connection with Northeast and Herbein through Cherry Bekaert, a CPA firm that’s a member of the Choreo Partner Alliance. Choreo acquired the wealth management business of Cherry Bekaert in 2022. Cherry Bekaert acquired Herbein & Co., a regional CPA firm that owns 70% of Herbein Financial Group, late last year. Northeast Financial Group is an independent RIA founded in 1998, and Herbein Financial Group operates as a subsidiary.
“This is an acquisition that reinforces our leadership at the intersection of tax and wealth,” said Jason Van de Loo, who took over as CEO of Choreo last July.
This represents Choreo’s initial acquisition under Van de Loo’s leadership and the first one since 2023. He said this deal is part of Choreo’s shift in strategy.
“Choreo is in growth mode,” he said. “We have a very unique organic growth engine in our Choreo Partner Alliance program, which is attractive to advisors. But since I joined in July, we’ve also redoubled our efforts around strategic M&A.”
Over the last several years, Choreo has been building out its CPA partner program, the Choreo Partner Alliance, primarily by buying RIA subsidiaries of CPA firms. That includes RSM, Cherry Bekaert Wealth Management, GreerWalker Wealth and the wealth management business of BDO USA. Choreo is also partnering with a number of CPAs that have not sold their RIAs to the firm.
“It’s not only an aggressive growth strategy that I’m trying to bring to market; it’s an even sharper focus on firms that bring the right client, the right capability, the right culture to help us grow,” Van de Loo said. “What we saw in Northeast Financial and Herbein started with the right clients. We are perfectly suited to serve a client I call ‘the builder’—the closely held business owner. Northeast Financial and Herbein excel with this builder client, and particularly in a part of the country where we haven’t had much of a footprint—in Pennsylvania.”
Choreo will focus much of its efforts this year in bringing more capabilities that serve that “builder” client.
“I want to give our advisors more capabilities; I want to give them more capacity; I want to give them more opportunities to grow,” Van de Loo said. “Internally, that means we’re going to continue to invest in advanced planning capabilities that serve the builder—deeper tax capabilities, deeper estate capability, deeper services for business owners.”
Since Van de Loo came on, he’s also been focused on building out his senior leadership team, bringing on folks from his former firm. In late July, the firm brought on Keith Kotfica, a former senior vice president and head of employee planning at Edelman, as chief growth officer.
In October, Choreo added Michael Rittershaus as chief service officer, a newly created position. He was a former senior vice president of wealth planning service and operations at Edelman.
And just this month, Erik Merkau, the former head of strategy and execution at Edelman Financial Engines, joined Choreo as chief wealth advisory officer.
“Once we were clear on strategy, I wanted to make sure I had the right leadership structure and the right leadership talent not to manage the business as it is in 2026, but to help us build the team that can scale for the next three to five years,” Van de Loo said.