The consolidation wave among registered investment advisors continued this month. Carlyle took a minority stake in Prime Capital, giving the firm’s owners a liquidity event without ceding control, while advisor network Savvy Wealth added two more independent firms — Blue Barn Wealth and Paragon Private Wealth Management — bringing roughly $550 million in combined assets onto its platform.
The growth at the fastest-moving consolidators is striking. Savvy has added more than $4 billion in recruited assets in 2026 alone, a fourfold increase year over year, pushing its total assets under management past $8 billion.
What changed: private equity’s interest in wealth management has moved beyond a handful of early movers into a broader, more competitive market for advisor networks and roll-up platforms, with minority-stake structures becoming as common as outright acquisitions.
Why it matters: for independent advisors weighing succession or growth capital options, the range of available structures has expanded meaningfully. For sponsors, differentiation among platforms is increasingly about growth execution rather than access to capital, which is now widely available across the space.
What to watch: whether AUM growth rates at the fastest-growing platforms hold up as the pool of attractive acquisition targets narrows.
Source: WealthManagement.com.
