In 2023, Tray Wiltse and the founding team of Integrated Wealth in Overland Park, Kan., had found a buyer they felt was a good cultural fit, offered the right price tag, and provided a promising future for the team. But Wiltse had a hangup.
“I didn’t want to give up my brand,” he said. “As an independent, you spend so much time building what for us what was Integrated Wealth, and that name stood for something in our community.”
Ultimately, what they felt was the best buyer won out, and Wiltse caved on what had initially started out as a “deal breaker” in ceding the brand name.
“I ran outside after we agreed to go forward and I took the parking sign down, ‘Reserved for Integrated Wealth,’” he said. “It’s in my garage in front of my car to this today.”
Wiltse is now a managing partner with Carson Wealth, the buyer who acquired the $400-million Integrated Wealth in 2023. He said the deal has been worth it, with Carson’s setup allowing the practice to continue its entrepreneurial mindset and provide broader equity opportunities for team members.
However, his story of giving something up to close the sale was emblematic of the advice RIA sellers gave to an audience at the Echelon Partners Deals and Dealmakers Summit last week in Laguna Niguel, Calif. While high valuations and a handful of eager buyers make it a seller’s market, panelists stressed that there will be some pain for the gain.
In the case of Gary Alt, the founder of Monterey Private Wealth and now a partner at Creative Planning, one hold-up was the then CEO and president of the firm’s reticence in going from a $1 billion RIA to a bigger, potentially more bureaucratic organization.
In the early stages of vetting, the team walked out of a meeting with a firm that had $8 billion in AUM, and Alt’s partner balked.
“He said, ‘I don’t know, guys, this seems like a really big firm,’” Alt recalled.
“Going from feeling like an $8 billion firm is a large company to ending up at Creative Planning means a lot of things happened between there, obviously, with mindshift and learning,” Alt said. “One of the things we learned was that scale matters in this business.”
Alt added that scale differs from just being big, the latter of which can mean delays and unnecessary procedures.
“A scaled company is using its size to its advantage,” he said. “Economies of scale, negotiating power, momentum, market presence.… In the end, we didn’t choose a large company, but a scaled company.”
Working through such mindset shifts is one reason Jim Dilworth, who moderated the panel, suggested that sellers get going with the sale process as early as possible.
Dilworth, founder and CEO of Dilworth Capital and a strategic advisor to Echelon, said ample time is not just for the sellers to align but also to ensure they get the best valuation and offer from the market.
“One underestimates how quickly things can get done,” Dilworth said. “To fully realize the asset, you really need to put the work in, and it always takes longer than one anticipates.”
According to panelist Mark DeLotto, a partner with Simon Quick Advisors, that time should include extensive vetting of the buyer that goes well beyond just the founders and includes discussions with other advisors and staff members at the firm.
DeLotto, who is now on the buyer side of the equation for Simon Quick, advised sellers to watch out for acquirers who don’t give them access to the broader team.
“If the principal or main owner is keeping everyone outside the room or is reticent to let you interact with their people or get to know them, that is a bad sign,” he said. “[As a seller] I want to see these people, here from them, get to know who they are and what they bring to the table in a partnership after the transaction.”
DeLotto, who works on acquisitions for the now more than $8 billion Simon Quick, said sellers should also consider their own people when going through the sale process. If they leave the team out or don’t communicate the choices being made, the results of a transaction can sour.
“It’s not just about the spreadsheets, it’s not just about the numbers—it’s about the people,” he said. “You need to make sure the messaging is correct and is done in a way that’s thoughtful, because words do matter.”
Alt and Wiltse said their time on the other side of the sale process has created growth for their practices, partly due to access to wider services. But they also stressed the continued sense of “ownership” in working with clients, which a story of Alt’s highlighted as still being crucial no matter the name on the door.
Alt said that one of his clients, who is a technology entrepreneur, called him shortly after the sale to Creative Planning.
“He said, ‘I’ve seen a lot of M&A in Silicon Valley, there’s always a honeymoon period, and then reality comes,” Alt recalled.
The advisor assured his client that things were going well and that if anything went wrong, he would tell him immediately.
“Then he said something that was really insightful,” Alt said. “He said, ‘I chose you to work with. I didn’t choose Creative Planning. I didn’t choose Monterey Wealth. I chose you.’ And that really underscored to me how important those personal relationships are.”Eventually, Monterey was sold to Creative Planning, one of the biggest players in the space with $370 billion in client assets.
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