RIA M&A Activity Report Q3 2026
60 announced RIA-to-RIA transactions, $100.9B in acquired AUM, and seven quarters of historical context, built from FINTRX proprietary transaction data.
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More buyers, smaller targets, a handful of headline deals
- 01225 deals in 2026 through Q3Announced through September, against 334 for all of 2025.
- 02Normalized median deal size held between $384M and $476MAcross all seven quarters, excluding transactions over $10B.
- 03Five deals made up 65% of Q3 AUMLed by Neos Investments ($30B) and Summit Trail Advisors ($21B).
- 04Wealth Enhancement led with 6 Q3 dealsAnd remains the most active acquirer since Q1 2025, with 21 transactions.
Q3 2026 at a Glance
Q3 2026 by Month
July led the quarter on deal count with 22 announced transactions. August produced the highest acquired AUM at $60.2B, driven by the Neos and Summit Trail transactions. September closed with 19 deals and consistent mid-market activity. Deal volume was evenly distributed across the quarter — 22 in July, 19 in August, 19 in September — reflecting broad, ongoing activity rather than concentration in any single month.
Largest Deals of Q3 2026
- 1 Neos InvestmentsWestport, CT Acquired by Goldman Sachs Asset Management $30.0B
- 2 Summit Trail AdvisorsNew York, NY Acquired by Corient $21.0B
- 3 Spire Wealth ManagementMcLean, VA Acquired by Concurrent Investment Advisors $5.4B
- 4 Seven Bridges AdvisorsNew York, NY Acquired by Corient $4.9B
- 5 Good Life AdvisorsCelebration, FL Acquired by LPL Financial $4.4B
The five largest transactions accounted for approximately $65.7B, roughly 65% of total Q3 acquired AUM. That concentration is consistent with the broader 2026 pattern: a small number of transformative platform acquisitions sitting atop a large base of sub-$1B activity.
Most Active Acquirers: Q3 2026
Quarterly Deal Activity: Q1 2025 to Q3 2026
Deal volume grew from 76 transactions in Q1 2025 to a peak of 95 in Q4 2025, with 2026 running at a consistent 60–88 deals per quarter through September. The 2026 YTD total stands at 225 announced transactions against 334 for all of 2025. The normalized median deal size — excluding transactions over $10B — has been essentially flat across all seven quarters, ranging from $384M to $476M. The apparent drop in median deal size often cited in the market is largely a function of outlier transactions in early 2025, not a structural shift in the size of firms being targeted.
* Q1 2025 includes Fidelity Personal and Workplace Advisors ($819B), Buckingham Strategic Wealth ($30.1B), and Irradiant Partners ($10.7B). ** Q3 2025 includes Commonwealth Financial Network ($305B) and Monticello Associates ($124B). *** Q4 2025 includes Creative Planning Institutional Advisors ($250B) and Evoke Advisors ($27.7B). **** Q2 2026 includes Pathway Capital Management ($95B), Innovator Capital Management ($31B), Precision Fiduciary Partners ($24.1B), Mycio Wealth Partners ($15.8B), and Mill Creek Capital Advisors ($12B).
Top Acquirers: Q1 2025 to Q3 2026
What This Means for ETF Issuers and Asset Managers
Every acquisition is a commercial trigger event. When RIAs merge, advisors may move firms, investment platforms are reevaluated, product shelves change, new decision-makers emerge, and territories realign. Competitors may lose footing during integration.
225 transactions across 2026 to date — on pace to approach 2025’s full-year total of 334 deals — means hundreds of disruption events across the private wealth channel each year. The teams that move fastest on M&A intelligence will be best positioned before competitors do.
Smart distribution teams should track active acquirers gaining scale, advisor movement after deals, newly combined firms reviewing allocations, regions seeing elevated concentration, and buyers with growing enterprise influence.
What This Means for Acquisitive RIAs
The most active buyers in this dataset are running proactive, repeatable pipelines rather than waiting for banker-led opportunities. Firms seeking growth need better visibility into likely sellers, succession-risk firms, regional tuck-in targets, repeat buyer patterns, and competitor expansion activity.
Q4 2025 saw 67 unique buyers active in a single quarter, the highest of any period tracked. That breadth of participation — across serial acquirers, regional platforms, and first-time buyers — is a structural feature of the market, not a temporary spike.
For growth-focused teams, M&A data is not just market news. It is revenue intelligence.
FINTRX is the leading private wealth intelligence platform, purpose-built for firms that need to find, understand, and engage with the registered investment advisor and family office channel. FINTRX covers RIAs, broker-dealers, wirehouses, private wealth teams, family offices, and endowments and foundations, giving asset managers, ETF issuers, alternative fund managers, and financial services firms the contact-level intelligence, allocation data, AUM tracking, and relationship mapping they need to move faster than their competition.
This report covers RIA-to-RIA M&A transactions tracked by FINTRX from Q1 2025 through Q3 2026. Both the acquiring and acquired firms are registered wealth management entities within the private wealth landscape. Financial acquirers, including private equity firms, banks, and insurers, are excluded from deal counts and AUM totals, though some transactions may involve firms with institutional backing that also hold RIA registrations.
FINTRX aggregates and validates transactions using public filings, regulatory sources, digital signals, market announcements, and proprietary research. Each transaction record includes acquired firm name, acquiring firm name, transaction date, AUM, employee count, headquarters location, and historical buyer activity.
Data compiled by FINTRX from publicly available sources and proprietary research. Provided for informational purposes only; not investment advice. Accuracy not guaranteed. This report was last refreshed on October 19, 2026 to reflect the most complete dataset available.
Turn RIA M&A activity into pipeline.
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