Mercer Advisors is buying a Tennessee-based firm with approximately $680 million in assets and 280 clients, the second acquisition the wealth management firm has announced in as many days.
Hosgoodwin Wealth, based in Franklin, Tenn., was founded in 2008 by CEO Art Hodge and President Cam Goodwin, and the entire team will move to Mercer along with the firm’s principals, who will continue to run the office. The firm specializes in providing comprehensive planning and management services to high-net-worth individuals, families and corporate clients.
According to Haus, he and Goodwin weren’t looking to sell their company when they were introduced to Mercer’s M&A leader Dave Barton. The team was originally skeptical about discussing acquisition options.
Goodwin said, “Through our meetings we learned that we can continue to run our office, closing in on things like compliance and HR, doing what we do best, serving clients and new people.” are winning.” “It was less about succession planning and more about adapting to the future and enabling art and me to focus on the things that add the most value to us personally and professionally.”
Howes also liked that Mercer could allow them to offer a greater number of services to customers, including property and tax planning and analysis, and more options for family offices.
“Cam and I also praised the career path opportunities and training programs for our employees that foster genuine career development opportunities beyond what we can provide,” he added. “In the end, it was the best decision for us and we got immediate scale and time benefits.”
Mercer Advisors is based out of Denver and is one of the largest RIAs in the country with more than $37 billion in AUM. In all, the firm has over 640 employees and over 60 offices across the country; Barton said he is pleased that the firm is acquiring the Franklin, Tenn.-based firm it has called one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.
Mercer also announced this week that it is acquiring Cordasco Financial Network, a $510 million AUM firm based in Naples, Fla., with more than 500 clients. CEO Steve Cordasco founded the firm in 2011, which focuses on “tax-focused” financial advice, using CPAs to ensure that clients’ tax consequences are duly considered when designing wealth management strategies.
While the firm grew rapidly, Cordasco felt it lacked the scale to accommodate the back-office needs with such growth.
“I saw David Barton … speaking at an industry conference and he coined the phrase, ‘If you want to stay competitive, you either need to scale, or get involved,'” Cordasco said. “I decided to join in rather than build it.”
Mercer has been on a multi-year run of M&A activity, Making 13 Acquisitions in 2020Of those deals, seven were announced in December 2020 alone. In 2021, Mercer made a total of 12 acquisitions, including Hosgoodwin and Cordasco, which closed on December 31.
