Ex-United Capital dealmaker Matt Brinker joins Merchant Investment Management

The veteran RIA dealmaker has re-entered the industry after departing United Capital following its sale to Goldman Sachs.

Matt Brinker is back in the RIA business.

Formerly the top dealmaker at United Capital Financial Advisers, Brinker has accepted a role as a managing partner with RIA investor Merchant Investment Management. Brinker started at Merchant on January 2.

Brinker exited United Capital in July of 2019, shortly after Goldman Sachs closed on its acquisition of the $25bn RIA. He had worked at the Newport Beach, Calif.-based firm since 2006, most recently serving as its head of acquisitions and chief business development officer.

Brinker closed 90 transactions in 13 years while at United Capital and he’ll be expected to take on a somewhat similar role at Merchant Investment Management.

‘One of the things I’m going to focus on is helping our partners not only acquire and source opportunities but figure out how to acquire at scale and integrate at scale, which I think is where this industry is invariably continuing to trend towards,’ Brinker said. ‘I’m going to be instrumental in helping our firms figure out growing inorganically at scale.’

While Brinker was tasked with buying firms outright while at United Capital, Merchant Investment Management has a different business model. It takes minority stakes in RIAs – often less than 20% – and invests in companies which act as service providers to RIAs. Merchant has investments in around 25 companies, managing partner Tim Bello said.

‘I love the alignment of a minority non-control position,’ Brinker said. ‘It empowers the entrepreneur and the principals of the firm to have an incredible amount of autonomy, an incredible amount of upside retained in the business.’

Founded in 2017 and led by executive chairman and former Apollo Global Management president Marc Spilker, Merchant Investment Management has moved to hire a number of employees with experience at recognizable companies in the RIA ecosystem. For example, Bello was an early-stage partner at RIA middle and back-office service provider Dynasty Financial Partners.

‘He’s going to help us run this organization, build this organization and execute on the ideas of this organization, both proactive to the market… and reactive to the market,’ Bello said.