Merchant stakes $12.2bn Raymond James-affiliated OSJ

San Diego-based Concurrent Partners subsequently invested in 25 of its advisory teams with Merchant’s assistance.

Serial RIA investor Merchant Investment Management has taken a minority stake in Concurrent Advisors, an office of supervisory jurisdiction for a group of Raymond James-affiliated advisors with a combined $12.2bn in assets. 

Merchant is taking a minority, non-controlling equity investment in Concurrent, managing partner Tim Bello told Citywire, without commenting on the size of its stake in the company. 

 ‘We see them being one of the key pillars of the Merchant community across the country,’ Bello said of Concurrent. ‘A: given that they’re a national company, B: that they have a phenomenal executive team, C: they have partnered with, in a meaningful way, one of the big custodians.’

Concurrent, based in San Diego, is a hybrid affiliation option for breakaway advisors seeking independence. Advisors who affiliate with Raymond James through Concurrent put their assets on Raymond James’ ADV and brokerage platform. The network currently has 127 advisors across 55 offices in the U.S. 

Raymond James ‘is a business we want to partner with,’ Bello said. ‘A lot of people view custodial chassis as vendors, we view them as partners.’

For Concurrent’s advisors, the investment opens an optional line of capital that can be leveraged to fund M&A activity, recruiting or service expansions, according to Concurrent founding partner Nate Lenz.

‘A lot of our teams are thinking about how to grow and evolve their businesses. Some are looking at going upstream in terms of their clientele and providing more family office-level services. Being able to collaborate with Merchant’s team on how to best accomplish that is very attractive to them,’ he said. ‘That’s not common in our space. You don’t see individual practices with $2-3m in revenue having the opportunity to have a partner like Merchant.’

Following the investment from Merchant, Concurrent subsequently invested in 25 of its advisory teams.

Lenz said Concurrent has added about $2.5bn in assets under management through recruiting year to date and expects to add another $1.5bn in AUM over the remaining months of 2021. 

Merchant has taken stakes in several RIAs this year, including $850m Signet Financial Management and $450m Axiom Financial Strategies Group.