Mercer Acquires $1.5B Charter Oak Capital
Mercer Global Advisors, the Denver, Colo.-based registered investment advisor with $98 billion in client assets, has acquired employee-owned Charter Oak Capital Management, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based wealth management firm with $1.5 billion in assets under management. The acquisition expands Mercer Advisors’ presence in New England for clients in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine.
Charter Oak, founded in 2002, is led by partners Emma Bean, Todd Cesca, Sarah Serling, Jeffrey Troiano, Lena Wyand and Karen Zaramba. Bean, who became a partner in 2024, said the firm decided it needed a larger, scaled partner to bolster clients’ services such as estate and tax planning.
“As we had a couple of partners approaching retirement, we just kind of took a step back and said, ‘Where should we go from here, what’s phase two of Charter Oak, and how can we continue to serve our clients in a way that’s really meaningful and also create opportunities and growth plans for our team?” she said. “What all six of us partners, because all six of us are also advisors, recognized is that there were so many other pieces of the wealth management puzzle that we wanted to offer.”
Bean said the company had worked with M&A advisory and investment bank Hue Partners to compile a list of 12 firms, then honed it down to three, and finally chose Mercer. None of Charter Oak’s advisors will retire in the immediate aftermath of the transaction, but more of the firm’s advisors will gain equity in the larger Mercer entity, with others having the option to buy in, she said.
“We have employees that have been with us over 20 years, and so having an opportunity to either be granted or purchase commercial stock was definitely part of the conversation throughout the whole process,” she said.
Charter Oak, which has 11 advisors, meshed well with Mercer’s leadership team, Bean said. But the partners also liked the idea of being a key part of establishing Mercer’s presence in New England.
“The market was really important,” she said. “We felt like we could be the first large team up in this northern New England region, and that was a nice little cherry on top.”
Charter Oak will continue to custody with Fidelity Investments, which has the majority of its clients, and Charles Schwab, while also being open to Mercer’s other custodial options, which include Raymond James and Goldman Sachs.
Mercer, which was founded in 1985, has grown to more than 110 locations. Over 50% of its employees are equity owners, with private equity firms Oak Hill Capital, Genstar Capital, and Altas Partners owning the majority of the firm.
Charter Oak’s “established presence along the New Hampshire seacoast expands our reach in an important New England market and adds a talented, next-generation team committed to comprehensive planning,” Dave Welling, CEO of Mercer, said in a statement.