RIA Sector Poised for PE Growth, Mergers, Breakaways in 2026
With 2025 in the rearview mirror, the consultants’ forecasts for the registered investment advisor sector in 2026 are in, with a few key areas standing out among prognosticators.
There’s anticipation that private equity will continue to pour into the sector, but often in more creative setups, including minority stakes, joining one or even two peers on a capital table, and recapitalizations for existing stakes. Additionally, there’s a cluster of RIAs in the mid-market asset range (say, $1 billion to $10 billion) that may start pairing up to avoid being gobbled up, or to position themselves for higher valuations in the long term. And there is a growing sentiment that the groundwork has been laid for more large wirehouse breakaway teams to jump straight to the RIA space—with no shortage of platforms and backers clamoring to be partners.
PE Gets Creative
Donald Schipf, a director in Houlihan Lokey’s Financial Services Group, expects 2026 to be an active year for private equity firms taking new stakes in RIAs and recapitalizing existing investments. His optimism is reinforced by Houlihan Lokey’s own client activity, as the firm has seen growing interest from private equity sponsors seeking its support in identifying and assessing potential RIA partners.
“We estimate there are roughly 50 to 60 private equity–backed RIA platforms today,” Schipf said. “And there are a similar number of firms actively looking for an entry point, which speaks to how compelling the industry’s fundamentals remain.”
That demand, Schipf added, increasingly includes RIAs in the $5 billion to $10 billion range seeking capital to fund the next stage of their growth.
“There is a population of independent firms that certainly could have sold to a strategic, but instead prefer to leverage their existing platforms,” he said. “Many of the firms in that category are now looking to add capital to accelerate growth through acquisitions, and our activity around minority capital raises has picked up meaningfully as more firms pursue that strategy.”
Cameron Hoerner, a senior banker in the asset and wealth management investment banking group at Piper Sandler, said private equity players have grown more comfortable joining peers on RIA capital tables for a chance to participate in the sector.
“These investments have generally been very successful for these sponsors, and they’re now looking for that second or third wealth management investment that doesn’t competitively overlap with what they’re currently holding,” he said. “That could be a different client type, or geography, or even how a firm is approaching the market to drive growth.”
Hoerner said another theme Piper Sandler is seeing in 2026 is more types of investors entering the space, citing, for example, asset manager Ares Management, which has historically been a lender to the space, is now providing alternative forms of capital in the sector through both its private equity division and its credit lending arm. Piper Sandler was the advisor on one such deal with $50 billion RIA platform, Steward Partners.
“There continues to be more demand than supply with more types of investors entering this space with an array of capital solutions designed to meet the objectives of the RIA,” he said. “These capital solutions providers are approaching opportunities more from a structured investment approach and actively entering processes alongside traditional buyout funds.”
Merger of Equal Needs
In its 2026 RIA outlook, Echelon Partners pointed to the “tough decisions” facing RIAs in the $1 billion to $10 billion asset range.
These firms, while relatively large, may be facing cash flow issues in M&A, recruiting and expanding services and operations.
“A shrinking share of firms are relying on partial liquidity or capital-only solutions, while an increasing majority are pursuing full or majority partnerships to address scale, succession and reinvestment demands,” Echelon’s consultants wrote. “As these dynamics persist, mid-scale RIAs are increasingly reassessing the economics of independence versus partnership, sustaining elevated M&A activity as firms seek long-term platforms capable of supporting continued growth and organizational complexity.”
Such mergers may also be needed to attract minority investors. According to the experts at DeVoe & Company, minority transactions in 2025 “skewed heavily toward larger rather than smaller firms, with 73% involving RIAs managing more than $1 billion in assets, including a meaningful share of firms with $10B+ in AUM.”
Additionally, those firms that do want to sell eventually may be better off if they are scaled up, if 2025 trends hold. By DeVoe’s count, sellers in the $1 billion to $5 billion range accounted for 28% of the deal market, up from 25% in 2024, across 90 transactions.
“Large RIAs were in high demand in 2025,” the authors wrote. “This surge reflects renewed demand from consolidators seeking to deploy capital on an accelerated basis. Consequently, these buyers are targeting large RIAs to achieve their expansion goals.”
Houlihan’s Schipf noted that, as founders consider selling their businesses, the best RIA acquirers work with them on a transition plan for their book of business. Referring to a recent panel he led of RIA CEOs at Houlihan’s annual conference, he said the leaders used a term called “emphatic engagement” with those founders.
“That means honoring their legacy, recognizing their success, and giving them a meaningful role in a structured plan—typically over three to five years—to transition their book of business to the next generation,” he said.
Breakaway Opportunity
Experts also seem aligned on the potential for more large wirehouse or national platform teams to break away to launch their own supported RIAs.
The poster child for such a move is last year’s Merrill breakaway OpenArc Corporate Advisory.
Corey Kupfer, founder and managing partner at Kupfer, who works on such movers, said in a recent comment to Wealth Management that RIA acquirers should study that deal to take advantage of the potential for similar movers.
“Larger teams need different and more robust support and services,” Kupfer wrote via email. “Firms need to be able to provide strong institutional capabilities, including being able to support retirement accounts, stock plans and stock plan administration, to be attractive to larger institutional teams.”
Echelon wrote in its outlook of a “growing movement of advisors leaving wirehouses and large broker/dealers to join independent RIAs.”
The consultancy noted that most are often aligning with strategic buyers, but that a “select few” have launched their own practices with financial backing.
“These transactions reflect a broader shift, primarily driven by economic incentives, as advisors pursue premium equity value and more attractive exit opportunities than those offered by traditional wirehouses’ succession programs,” the authors wrote.
The viability of these trends continuing in 2026 will, of course, depend on a variety of factors, including the markets and economy. But according to Piper Sandler director Hoerner, there are no signs of the RIA deal market slowing.
“These businesses continue to generate organic growth with minimal fee compression, and client retention remains extraordinarily high for these businesses with particularly significant operating leverage,” Hoerner said. “On the inorganic side, despite all of the M&A activity in the past few years, there continues to be no limit to the available targets for these platforms to acquire—new RIAs continued to be created year-over-year, on a net basis, despite all of the activity.”