Dynasty Financial Partners, the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based support network for independent advisors and RIAs, is launching its own investment bank.
According to a press release, Dynasty Investment Bank will offer investment recommendations to wealth management firms both within and outside its network of members. That’s in addition to the investment bank’s other work in mergers and acquisitions, corporate valuations and capital raising.
“We are facing substantial demand for M&A and investment banking services from advisors in our network and outside our network,” said Shirl Penney, CEO of Dynasty Financial Partners, in a statement.
Whether a CEO wants to acquire an RIA or tuck-in a group of advisors, he said—referring to a transaction that involves a larger company acquiring part or all of a smaller one and completely absorbing it into its own platform—or a management team wants to explore selling their business, or a corporate leader needs a valuation opinion to more accurately assess the equity in the business, they need “high quality and objective advice,” said Penney
“With our deep expertise and years of experience working with hundreds of leading advisors, we are well positioned to offer RIAs a wide range of investment banking capabilities in this ever-complicated market,” he continued.
Besides assisting with a range of corporate capital raising and advisory services, the investment bank will seek to identify strategic opportunities for clients, including recapitalizations and succession planning, among other services.
To accomplish this, it will employ a team of “seasoned investment bankers,” the press release said, as well as other Wall Street veterans and private equity professionals who are experienced in serving C-suite executives with valuations, fairness opinions, M&A activity, capital structure optimization, and other aspects of corporate finance.
Altogether, the Dynasty Investment Bank squad has advised on transactions with an aggregate value of more than $25 billion, the press release said.
The timing of this move certainly seems apropos. “The independent wealth management industry has accelerated its pace of consolidation and maturation over the last decade,” noted Harris Baltch, Dynasty Investment Bank’s head, who has led Dynasty Financial Partners’ M&A and capital strategies since May 2020. “The headwinds of aging advisors, the valuation gap of succession, and a higher interest rate, combined with the influx of different capital providers and a multitude of business models will create a long runway for consolidation in the years to come.”
This backdrop, he added, creates a need for independent advice about M&A activities among CEOs, management teams, and investors.
Dynasty Wealth Partners is known for helping wirehouse advisors go independent and providing back-office support to RIAs. In the past 12 months, it has advised on more than 14 such transactions. For instance, this past February, it assisted Cincinnati-based RIA DayMark Wealth Partners integrate a group of Wells Fargo advisors who managed $450 million in client assets. That same month, Dynasty supported a Morgan Stanley Wealth Management team that oversaw $715 million in client assets when they moved to Americana Partners, a Houston-based RIA with more than $6 billion in assets.
