NEW YORK (Reuters) - Focus Financial Partners LLC, which has grown by acquiring independent registered investment advisers (RIA) and teams across the United States, said on Monday it landed one of the largest independent RIA groups in the Chicago area.
The group, Strategic Wealth Partners, founded by David Copeland and Neal Price, has more than $1.4 billion in client assets. Price said that while the firm has grown steadily since its founding in 2008, they decided to join Focus Financial because it can help Strategic Wealth grow more by acquiring smaller firms.
Focus provides technology, succession planning and acquisition support to independent adviser teams that join as partner firms.
"Our industry is highly fragmented nationwide and especially here in the Chicago market," Price said. "We believe that with Focus as our partner we can become an acquirer of some of those firms over time."
Strategic Wealth officially launched its partnership with Focus on Nov. 1. Since then, Price said, they have had discussions with four wealth management firms that they are interested in acquiring.
In the last few months, six RIAs supported by Focus have acquired firms that managed a combined total of around $1 billion in client assets.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
