Main Street Backs New RIA Of Merrill, LPL Breakaways
Main Street Financial Solutions, a Newtown, Pa.-based RIA with $2.5 billion in client assets, has launched a three-person RIA of former wirehouse and broker/dealer employees based in Malvern, Pa., called Collaborative Wealth Management.
Founder, managing partner and wealth advisor Branden Sacks left Merrill Lynch after 14 years to lead the new RIA, according to his LinkedIn profile. Erik Kalfus left LPL Financial after five years, and family outreach and advocacy director Rebecca Stokes will join the firm after more than two years at Merrill as a wealth management client associate.
“Wealth management is evolving, and we believe the role of the advisor should evolve as well,” Sacks wrote in his LinkedIn post. “That means more involvement, more input and more collaboration between the professionals and agencies clients rely on to achieve their goals. At Collaborative Wealth Advisory, we’re embracing this shift, building a firm that prioritizes transparency, teamwork, and personalized guidance.”
The trio provides financial advice and guidance, but Sacks also has a specialization in special needs planning.
Main Street was founded in 2002 and has a network of financial advisors in 25 locations in the United States.
Steward Partners Poaches $481M Team from Ameriprise
Steward Partners, an employee-owned hybrid partnership of independent advisory firms, has brought on a $481 million North Canton, Ohio-based firm formerly with Ameriprise.
Longbridge Wealth Advisors will join Steward’s legacy advisor division with 10 people, including partners Jack Elgin and Neven Zelich. The duo worked together at Ameriprise, Mid-Atlantic Capital Management, UBS and Merrill Lynch over a more than 20-year span, according to BrokerCheck. The team includes three other advisors as well.
“What stood out most was [Steward’s] employee-owned model, collaborative culture and how intentional they are about protecting that culture,” Zelich said in a statement.
Steward’s Legacy Division seeks established advisories looking for succession plans. The New York-based firm was founded in 2013, and is still majority-owned by its partners, but has minority interests from the Cynosure Group and the Pritzker Organization.
RIA GoalVest Raises $10M in Second VC Funding Round
GoalVest Advisory, a female-founded RIA based in New York, closed its second venture growth fund with about 60 limited partners and over $10 million. The firm cited its goal as being to pull in a total of $50 million in the next six to 12 months.
The firm launched its second GoalVest Venture Capital fund in October, opening it to outside investors and clients from its $650 million RIA.
GoalVest was founded in 2017 and opened its first venture fund in 2022, investing in firms such as CoreWeave, Insomnia Cookies and Klarna. CoreWeave, an AI infrastructure company, had an initial public offering in March of this year. That fund had an internal rate of return of 40% since its inception, according to GoalVest.
“CoreWeave’s IPO marks just the beginning of value realization in our portfolio with many other notable names like Anduril and OLIPOP on the cusp of exiting,” GoalVest Advisory Founder and CEO Sevasti Balafas said in a statement. “The performance of Fund I has validated our thesis, and Fund II will continue to amplify the reach of our unique approach.”
Balafas had been a senior portfolio manager at City National Rochdale, and before that was a vice president at Lehman Brothers, according to her LinkedIn.
RIA Soltis Adds $500M Firm in Utah
Soltis Investment Advisors, a $11 billion RIA based in St. George, Utah, has acquired a firm in its home state called High End Financial.
The RIA, which is led by advisor Jay Wells, will bring $500 million in client assets to Soltis from high-net-worth individuals, families and business owners. Wells will be a senior advisor, institutional and wealth services, and his firm will take on the Soltis name.
“We look to partner with advisors who will enhance our long-term vision—whether that’s expanding into key markets, deepening our presence in existing ones or enhancing the services we provide,” Jeff Harris, Soltis’ head of M&A and partnerships, said in a statement.
Harris joined Soltis from Carson Group earlier this year to lead its acquisition work.
Compound Adds Former Mercer Advisor, Hits $4B in AUM
Compound Planning, a self-described digital family office based in New York, has poached an advisor from mega-firm Mercer Advisors based in Boca Raton, Fla.
With the recent addition of vice president and wealth advisor Scott Weigel, 17 advisors have joined Compound this year across 10 states.
In part due to those additions, the firm has reached over $4 billion in assets under management—growing rapidly from its reported $3 billion in AUM back in March.
The RIA’s advisors have access to its self-created Compound Dashboard for clients, a financial planning platform with over 10,000 users. In February, it also added tax planning and filing capabilities to its dashboard.Compound added a total of 30 advisors in 2024.
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