DeVoe counts 77 RIA M&A deals in Q3, down 17% as consolidators gain share

DeVoe & Company counted 77 RIA mergers and acquisitions in the third quarter, down 17% from 93 a year earlier, ending a seven-quarter run of record activity. The figure comes from the firm's Q3 2026 DeVoe RIA Deal Book, as reported by Wealth Solutions Report.

DeVoe now projects 320 to 340 transactions for 2026, against 2025's record of 322. Through September the count stood at 244, so matching 2025 requires 78 more deals and setting a new high requires 79; the range implies 76 to 96 transactions in the fourth quarter, compared with 81 in the fourth quarter of 2025. In September the firm had forecast roughly 317 for the year and said volume would likely finish below 2025's record; the revised range straddles it.

Consolidators announced 129 transactions through September, 53% of the market and their largest share since 2021, per the report. RIA buyers accounted for 71 deals and a 29% share. Firms with more than $5 billion in AUM, which DeVoe calls mega sellers, announced 41 transactions through September, already surpassing every prior full-year total.

Small sellers, defined as firms with $100 million to $500 million in AUM, stayed active but held a 36% market share through September, putting them on pace for their lowest full-year share on record. "This is a loss of market share, not a retreat from M&A," David DeVoe, the firm's founder and CEO, said in an email to Wealth Solutions Report. "Small seller volume remains healthy, but the other segments are expanding faster."

Higher borrowing costs may affect acquisition prices and payment structures, the firm said, with sellers potentially asked to finance part of a deal or to accept payments contingent on future performance, depending on the buyer and the seller's earnings. In practice, contingent consideration and seller notes move part of a deal's risk from the buyer's cost of capital onto the seller's post-close results.

DeVoe attributed part of the slowdown to spikes in the CBOE Volatility Index, which he said figured in owners' decisions to postpone sales. The decline "surprised us, and it sent us back to the drawing board to understand why," he said in the email. The quarterly count is a lagging indicator: a soft three-month stretch largely reflects decisions sellers made months earlier, so it reads on timing more than value.