Written by Elizabeth Flavin Crawford, Partner | Chief Investment Officer
and Ian Sale, Partner | President | Chief Operating Officer
The name on the door may be the same, but the priorities behind it may not be.
Recently, a Miami-based wealth firm called Corient crossed approximately $508 billion in client assets following the completion of its acquisitions of two U.K.-based advisory firms, according to WealthManagement.com, reportedly making it among the world’s largest non-bank wealth manager. You may have never heard of Corient. Chances are, a few years ago, neither had the advisors who now work there. It was formed in 2020 and rebranded in 2023 as the U.S. wealth arm of CI Financial, a Canadian company. CI Financial was taken private last year and is now majority owned by Mubadala, a sovereign wealth fund controlled by the government of Abu Dhabi.
Corient isn’t alone. CAPTRUST, backed by private equity firms Carlyle and GTCR, currently manages over $1 trillion in client assets and has been acquiring firms at a relentless pace. Creative Planning, Cetera, Hightower, Focus Financial, Beacon Pointe — the list of private equity-backed or foreign-owned consolidators reshaping the industry continues to grow. In Q1 2026 alone, more than $100 billion in RIA assets changed hands.
So what does any of this have to do with you?
Who is actually running your wealth management firm?
Not long ago, when you hired a wealth manager, you typically hired a person and a firm that person built, or at least one they staked their career on. Decisions were made by people who knew the clients by name. If your advisor wanted to change the investment platform, bring on a new planning tool, or hire a specialist for estate work, they made that call.
When private equity (PE) or a foreign sovereign wealth fund acquires that firm, the decision-making structure may change, sometimes fundamentally. The new owners have their own timeline, typically a five-to-seven-year PE hold period, and their own priorities: growth metrics, EBITDA margins, and a future exit. The people running your firm may now be a board in another time zone answering to investors whose interests may not align with yours.
“The people making decisions for your money now answer to investors whose names you may never know.”
That doesn’t make them bad actors. But it does mean the firm’s energy may increasingly be pointed at growth, acquiring the next firm, integrating systems, hitting revenue targets, rather than deepening relationships with existing clients. In markets like ours, where several firms have been acquired in recent years and integration is still unfinished, clients may feel the friction before leadership acknowledges it.
A special word about bank-owned advisors
Private equity and sovereign wealth funds aren’t the only owners that can complicate your advisor’s job. Many Americans have their wealth managed through the advisory arm of a large bank or brokerage firm and that structure can come with its own set of conflicts.
How the conflict works
A bank earns money from lending, insurance, credit products, and proprietary investment funds that carry higher margins for the institution. Your advisor inside that bank may genuinely want to do right by you but they operate within a system with competing priorities.
This isn’t a secret. The SEC and FINRA have flagged proprietary product conflicts in bank-affiliated wealth management for years. The structure itself can create different incentives than those present at independent firms. An independent registered investment advisor operating under a fiduciary standard is required to act in your best interest. There is generally no parent bank lobby, no proprietary fund shelf to fill, and no cross-sell quota to hit.
What happens to your advisor?
Your advisor may be as frustrated as you are. In most acquisitions, advisors receive some form of deal consideration, so they aren’t likely to complain publicly. But their day-to-day reality often shifts in ways they didn’t fully anticipate. Culture may get diluted. Client servicing can become more transactional. Investment platforms may get rationalized to whatever the new parent prefers. New reporting requirements may be implemented. The time your advisor used to spend on your financial plan may now be partially redirected to internal processes that serve the platform, not you.
Advisor turnover often occurs at consolidating firms. If the culture that made a firm special gets diluted, or replaced, many talented people leave. And when they leave, they take institutional knowledge about your situation with them. At a large enough platform, you may cycle through advisors at a pace that can undermine trust and make relationship-building incredibly difficult.
Why consider an independent, employee-owned firm?
An independent, employee-owned RIA has a fundamentally different incentive structure. The people who own the firm are the people who answer your calls. They are not managing to a PE exit or reporting to a foreign capital allocator. Their equity is tied to the long-term health of client relationships rather than a near-term liquidity event.
- Decisions are made locally, with a focus on your goals
- Avoids external pressure to hit growth targets for outside investors
- Advisor continuity — when people own what they built, they tend to stay
- Avoids bank, proprietary products, and other competing institutional priorities
- Independent firms can focus on the preservation of culture — they want the trust you placed in your wealth management firm to endure
A $500 billion firm has resources, including some that a smaller independent firm may not. But there can be a meaningful difference between a platform that offers everything and an advisor who is focused on delivering what you need. Independence allows an advisor to concentrate on doing the right things for the right clients. When a firm has found its niche and built around it, you shouldn’t feel like a number. You should feel like the reason it exists.
The question worth asking
The next time you sit down with your advisor, ask a simple question: Who owns this firm? Then ask who owned it five years ago, and who might own it five years from now. The answer will tell you a great deal about whether this highly valued relationship is being managed for your benefit or for someone else’s balance sheet.
Disclaimer: This article is provided by Sendero Wealth Management, LLC (“Sendero”), an SEC-registered investment adviser, for informational and educational purposes only and reflects general industry observations as of the date of publication. It is not intended as investment advice or a recommendation to select any particular advisor or firm structure.
The views expressed are those of Sendero and are subject to change. Statements regarding industry practices are general in nature and may not apply to all firms or situations.
References to third-party firms are based on publicly available information believed to be reliable but have not been independently verified, and no representation is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All investment advisers, including independent firms, are subject to potential conflicts of interest. Clients should evaluate any adviser based on their individual needs and circumstances. More information about Sendero, including its Form ADV Part 2A, the Form CRS Relationship Summary, fees, services, and conflicts of interest, is available at www.sendero.com.
