Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Dakota tracked 103 announced US wealth management M&A transactions in Q2 2026, totaling roughly $164.7B in client AUM. That is essentially flat on deal count versus Q1's 102 transactions, and up 24% from Q4 2025.
But the headline number hides the more useful story.
Most of that AUM moved through a small group of repeat, sponsor-backed platforms doing two, three, or eleven deals in a single quarter. These are the firms actively absorbing advisors right now, which means they are also the firms actively re-underwriting manager lineups right now.
If you sell into the RIA market, this list is your Q3 target list.
In this article, we'll rank the ten most active RIA consolidation platforms of Q2 2026 by client AUM added, name the PE sponsor behind each one, and show what these platforms look like inside Dakota Marketplace.
The Top 10 Platforms by Client AUM Added
1. Wealthspire (Fiducient Advisors) - ~$14.1B across 3 deals
Backed by Madison Dearborn Partners. Wealthspire led the quarter, with its Fiducient Advisors institutional consulting arm and core RIA both active: Axia Advisory ($1.9B), Sellwood Investment Partners ($11B), and Fi3 Advisors ($1.2B).
2. Corient - ~$13.4B across 2 deals
Backed by Mubadala Capital. Two sizable adds in Vivaldi Capital Management ($5.6B) and Capital Advisors ($7.8B), on top of an aggressive European build-out that included Geneva-based Bedrock Group and Paris-based Letus Private Office.
3. Hightower Advisors - ~$12.7B across 2 deals
Backed by Thomas H. Lee Partners. Lexington Wealth Management ($3.2B) plus a $9.5B affiliate buy-in with The Bahnsen Group. Worth watching closely: Hightower is itself reportedly pursuing a controlling-stake sale.
4. Waverly Advisors - ~$6.4B across 3 deals
Backed by WPCG and HGGC. TruWealth Advisors ($3.1B), Smithfield Trust Co. ($3B), and WealthPlans/Cooley & Associates ($250M). Waverly has been one of the steadier mid-market buyers for several quarters running.
5. Stratos Wealth Holdings - ~$4.8B across 11 deals
Backed by SEI. The busiest deal count of the quarter by a wide margin, built from 11 already-affiliated partner practices across seven states. A different playbook than the rest of this list, and a sign that multi-firm mergers are becoming a viable alternative to one-off acquisitions
Every platform here has a full profile in Dakota Marketplace, with office-level records, current AUM, and the named investment team behind the approved list. Book a demo.
6. Modern Wealth Management - ~$3.3B across 3 deals
Backed by Crestview Partners. Legacy Wealth Management ($1.2B), Brown and Company ($1B), and Flaharty Asset Management ($1.1B). Modern Wealth is also working through a recapitalization just three years after its 2023 launch.
7. Carson Group - ~$2.0B across 5 deals
Backed by Bain Capital. Five transactions: Harbor Wealth ($396M), Buckley Investment Group ($120M), a Murray, UT practice ($160M), Jackson Wealth Management ($1.1B), and the Swenson practice ($270M). Classic high-velocity tuck-in strategy.
8. Wealth Enhancement - ~$1.6B across 5 deals
Backed by TA Associates and Onex. Parros Financial ($118M), FullCircle Wealth ($268M), Lake Tahoe WM ($318M), Sherpa Wealth ($108M), and the Shufro-Glass Group ($760M). Tied with Carson for the quarter's busiest deal count.
9. OneDigital
Backed by Stone Point Capital. One of the nine top-ten platforms carrying a disclosed institutional sponsor, and a reminder that the retirement-plan channel and the wealth channel keep converging.
10. Prosperity Capital Advisors
The lone platform in the top ten without a disclosed institutional backer in source reporting. Like Stratos, Prosperity grew through multi-practice mergers rather than single-target acquisitions.
Nine of Ten Carry a Private Equity Sponsor
That is the number worth sitting with. Heavy sponsor ownership is a signal of centralized, home-office-driven manager research, and it changes the shape of the sales motion.
When manager selection sits at the enterprise level through approved lists and model portfolios, one well-prepared pitch to a platform's investment team carries further than advisor-by-advisor outreach ever will. A single approved-list placement at Wealthspire or Corient now reaches a meaningfully larger advisor base than it did three months ago, because the advisor base itself grew.
Deal structure matters too. Full acquisitions typically reset manager relationships. Minority and strategic investments, like TRIA Capital Partners' $22B non-control stake in Offit Capital or Brown Advisory's $18B investment in RockCreek, usually leave incumbent teams in place. Treat a rumored minority investment very differently from a rumored controlling-stake sale.
What These Platforms Look Like in Dakota Marketplace
A ranked list tells you which firms are buying. It does not tell you who to call. Here is the current picture inside Dakota Marketplace:
- 8,800+ RIA accounts, with 1,745 managing $1B or more, the tier where outside manager selection is usually a formal, committee-driven process
- 28 RIAs flagged as aggregators, and six of them (Hightower, Corient, Wealth Enhancement, Wealthspire, Waverly, and Modern Wealth) appear on this quarter's top-ten list
- 1,900+ tracked contacts across the ten platforms above, roughly 1,300 of them employed directly at the firms
The office-level detail is where this gets practical. Corient carries more than 30 separate office records from Miami to Menlo Park. Wealthspire carries more than 20, from New York City to San Rafael. Hightower carries dozens of team-level records across its affiliate network. Each of those is a named contact list, not a press release.
That difference matters most in the weeks right after a deal is signed, when the acquirer's investment team has not yet locked in a formal re-underwriting process. It is the widest window you get.
Prioritizing Q3 Outreach
Three things to take into your distribution calendar:
- Start with the platforms, not the targets. The buyers on this list will keep buying. The manager-selection resets they trigger are recurring, not one-time.
- Check your shelf space at all ten. If you have a relationship at a firm one of these platforms just acquired, do not assume it survives the new owner's review.
- Watch the pipeline. Hightower, Summit Trail Advisors, and Parallel Advisors are all reportedly exploring sales, and The Mather Group and Modern Wealth are working through recapitalizations. Flag each one now, well before a deal closes.
Want to track RIA M&A as it happens, with the PE sponsors and named contacts behind every transaction? Book a demo to see how Dakota Marketplace covers the RIA market.
