The premium in RIA deals now goes to fit, not growth

Advisor Growth Strategies' annual RIA Deal Room Report has a new high median multiple: 11.6x EBITDA. The firm recorded that figure in its 2025 edition. Growth gets a firm into the auction; it no longer explains the size of the winning bid.

Firms can post similar AUM growth, revenue growth, and margins and still receive materially different offers. AGS put that to a test. It built six hypothetical RIA firms. Seventeen active acquirers reviewed them. No profile won every buyer. The strongest drew 80% of buyers. That firm was a $500 million RIA. Recurring revenue made up 95% of its total. Two owners shared the equity. Another firm at the same asset level drew none.

AGS attributes the difference to fit. Such selectivity is possible because supply keeps building. Cerulli projects nearly 21,000 independent advisors will retire within the next decade. The SEC-registered RIA count keeps growing. With that much inventory ahead, buyers can wait for the shape they want.

The shape they want comes down to durability. Buyers ask whether a firm's success will continue under new ownership, through changing markets, and after leadership transitions. That gap is where the multiple is made or lost. For owners, the practical move is to treat the years before a sale as an underwriting period: build the second row, tighten the revenue mix, document how the firm actually runs. At 11.6x, leaving that work until the process starts can reduce an auction to a single bidder. The alternative is an auction with four bidders.