We talk to one of those US firms making waves in the wealth management M&A space.

US-based Merchant Investment Management has inked several partnerships and acquisitions in the wealth sector in recent weeks – a trend highly familiar to industry practitioners contemplating a busy period lasting several years for M&A. We caught up with Merchant’s managing partner, Tim Bello, to ask him about strategy. 

What are Merchant's growth goals in terms of revenues, size of business coverage, etc? Are there any targets it can give out? 
Merchant’s growth goals are more art than science – hurry slowly, quality over quantity, and we always focus on the people within each independent wealth management business we partner with. It’s the advisors and their relationships with clients that make these firms what they are, and Merchant will never lose sight of that.

Along those lines, being impactful and engaging with our partner firms at a local level, while also being able to reach globally throughout the Merchant community of connections is a big part of how we’ve grown to date. Capital partners in our space need to be prepared to add value beyond the money, and so we spend a good amount of time focusing on how to do that.

In terms of statistical targets – we seek to align with firms that have reached $1 billion or more in AuM, although for firms that are below that size, if there is a natural fit and we agree on overall vision, Merchant has and will continue to entertain and engage in those partnerships. To date, our approach has brought together a community of private partnerships that represent nearly $110 billion in AuM. In terms of future targets, there’s no ceiling or target to our growth…could we be aligned with $200, $300, or $500 billion? Perhaps, yes.

In what part of the wealth management market is Merchant mainly interested? (RIAs, multi-family offices, other?)
Merchant is focused in the wealth management space, most specifically aligning with those firms who we would consider to be fully independent. 

Now with that said we don’t define independence as RIA only…but instead any firm with its own “look, feel, brand and message.” Otherwise described as businesses which can act objectively on behalf of their clients as institutionally covered clients of the street versus. being constrained as an agent of only one institution.

How does Merchant typically go about partnerships/acquisitions? 
Merchant is focused on being in the minority, non-control space, where we invest our long-term equity capital into businesses that want to grow as opposed to exit by way of a transaction. Our structure creates a pure alignment of interest between Merchant and the advisors while also ensuring that these independent brands and their clients are not disrupted. 

There has been a lot of M&A in wealth management recently, and yet deals continue. At what point does Merchant think this will peak out? 
In terms of independent wealth management, it’ll be a while before the table is really set, as they say. So, we feel that the “peak” is far out into the future…. That said, we are extremely happy with our timing in terms of when we launched Merchant, and how our business has matured shoulder to shoulder with the independent movement over the last five years.  We see at least 10 more years ahead of this kind of action, which is also why when we built Merchant it was centered around long-term and durable capital. If it's longer than a decade…we have the type of capital to continue to participate. Relative to many others who would be considered our peers, we feel that’s a key differentiator…Merchant was built to last.

When was Merchant founded? How large is the firm in terms of staff, assets, etc? 
The firm was founded in 2017. Today we represent nearly 50 partnerships and have $110 billion in AuM.

Does Merchant have deals outside the US?
Merchant touched down internationally when we aligned through a minority equity investment with Brainvest – with offices in Geneva, Zurich, Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro and Miami.