In the race for scale in the registered investment advisors space, Miami-based Corient is going to Europe for growth by acquiring two U.K.-based wealth managers overseeing a combined $214 billion in assets.
Corient announced it had made a deal for Stonehage Fleming, a multi-family office based in Jersey, U.K., overseeing $175 billion in assets, and Stanhope Capital Group, a London-based wealth manager with $40 billion in client assets. Combining the firms with Corient’s existing $216 billion in assets under management makes the firm the world’s largest non-bank wealth manager, according to data compiled by Corient.
The acquisitions are expected to close in the first half of 2026 and see Corient, the RIA arm of Toronto-based CI Financial, manage money in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Africa, focusing on ultra-high-net-worth families.
Fee-only RIA Corient was formed in 2023 as the rebranded U.S. wealth management business of CI Financial. Earlier this year, CI Financial officially closed a deal to be taken private by alternative asset manager Mubadala Capital after having previously been listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. CI announced that $3.4 billion deal in November 2024.
Kurt MacAlpine, partner and chief executive officer of Corient and CEO and director of CI Financial, said that since its U.S. start in 2020 with no assets under management, Corient has had a long-term global focus.
“The first piece for us was getting Corient in the U.S. to a critical scale; obviously $200 billion of assets was a critical decision point,” he said. “Then we said if we’re going to globalize, where is the next logical place to go and how do we think about entering those respective markets?”
MacAlpine said that led to the firm identifying two of Europe’s largest wealth managers, with whom Corient started talks in February. Meanwhile, with CI Financial being private, Mubadala could fund the deal without adding debt or limiting the RIA’s runway for future deals.
“From our industry’s perspective in the RIA space, there’s a lot of capital in it, but almost all of it is temporary,” he said. “We are not only going private with a strategic partner, but we are doing it with somebody who effectively has a permanent time horizon. We were very fortunate to be able to not only do the transactions but also do it in a way with full equity funding.”
Giuseppe Ciucci is the executive chairman of Stonehage Fleming, which has offices in 12 European jurisdictions and works in wealth and investment management, governance, succession, planning, legal and tax advisory, and trust and fiduciary services, among others. It also oversees the wealth of the Fleming family, which traces its roots to Robert Fleming, a Scottish merchant and financier who helped fund the building of railroads in the U.S.
Stanhope Capital was founded in 2004 by Daniel Pinto, previously a senior banker at UBS Warburg. At $40 billion, the wealth manager is one of the largest in the U.K., and offers wealth management, consulting, merchant banking and private investments. It includes New York-based FWM Holdings, owner of multi-family office FFT Wealth Management.
The two U.K.-based firms have “clients in common,” Ciucci said in a statement.
After the deal closes, Cuicci will become a partner and CEO of Corient’s international business, and he and Pinto will join Corient’s board of directors. The duo and other executive team members will become equity holders in Corient. Stuart Parkinson, Stonehage Fleming’s CEO, will be a partner and president of Corient’s international business.
The new entity will comprise more than 300 firm owners, and the new wealth managers will operate in Corient’s private partnership model, which currently has 260 partners and allows advisors to work with clients across teams.
MacAlpine said extending the private partnership setup to Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope was a key part of the talks and final deal.
“Not only are we globalizing Corient today, but that partnership we built in the U.S., I’m also globalizing the underlying partnership,” he said. “It’s not going to be Corient with multiple divisions; this is one global partnership, all of us working it together, extending the benefit to clients across jurisdictions.”
More broadly, he sees the wealth management space as particularly suited to having a global footprint, both to serve local clients, and for families managing wealth across countries.
“Instead of scale being built globally, scale is built locally in wealth management,” he said. “It’s very important that you have scale in each market you’re in. Being scaled in the aggregate is kind of irrelevant.”
The move comes amid what some M&A trackers predict to be a record year for dealmaking in the RIA space. In August, Cresset made a blockbuster by acquiring Monticello Associates, an employee-owned institutional consulting firm with $124 billion in assets under advisement. The combined entity is now a nearly $200 billion RIA based in Chicago.
Jefferies and Goldman Sachs were the financial advisors on Corient’s deal. Spencer House Partners LLP is the financial advisor to Stonehage Fleming, and Rothschild & Co. is the financial advisor to Stanhope Capital.
Once final, Corient’s global wealth business will consist of Corient Private Wealth and a new subsidiary of CI Financial that will acquire Sonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital.
#Corient #Global #Acquisitions