Scale commands record prices as RIA deal count falls

Fidelity Investments' midyear M&A report counts 120 RIA transactions in the first half of 2026, down 9% from the 132 closed a year earlier, while assets changing hands climbed to $343 billion, a record, up nearly 88%.

The gap between those figures is the report's central finding—median deal size rose 22% to $630 million and the proportion of targets above $1 billion in assets increased 6%, a shift Fidelity attributes to acquirers courting multi-disciplinary practices with institutional capabilities rather than assembling small regional shops.

That pursuit of multi-disciplinary practices is what the report's authors describe as the market entering 'its second chapter'—an evolution from traditional advisory practices into sophisticated financial services enterprises. Buyers are screening for next-generation talent, centralized operations, leadership teams that integrate easily, and in-house capabilities across retirement plans, tax, trust, and alternatives; sellers are selecting partners for the infrastructure they could not build alone.

Private equity remains the engine, backing 89% of first-half transactions, up from 86% a year earlier and within the 86% to 89% band Fidelity has tracked since 2024. The top 20 acquirers, including Beacon Pointe Advisors, Wealth Enhancement Group, Mercer Global Advisors and Savant Wealth Management, were behind nearly 60% of deals, and every one of them is private equity-backed.

For an owner weighing a sale, the buyer pool is smaller, better-capitalized, and looking for a specific kind of business—a practice below the median still has options, but the options are thinning while the benchmark at the top rises.

That dynamic will not be lost on anyone who watched Carlyle pay $2.8 billion for MAI Capital Management earlier this month, a deal that priced the firm at roughly 5.5 cents per dollar of AUM. As this publication argued at the time, that trade re-priced the RIA exit. Fidelity's first-half data extends the point: the premium for scale is growing, and the risk of waiting applies most to owners who have not yet built the machinery buyers demand.

Fidelity also notes that traditional broker-dealer M&A has ground to a standstill, citing ongoing consolidation and a shrinking pool of targets, while the RIA channel absorbs the deal flow and the capital—but only at the top of the market.

An owner below the record-setting median faces a choice: spend the next two years building the institutional capabilities buyers now require—succession-ready next-generation talent, centralized operations, tax and trust desks—or sell before the gap between their practice and the buyers' screen widens further. The build window and the sell window are not the same.

Sellers in the upper tier are capturing a record share of the market's capital, and everyone else should assume the queue is shorter than it was a year ago and price their timing accordingly.