While “the sky is not falling” for firms weighing whether to enter an increasingly frenzied M&A market, experts are expecting the rate of activity to increase in the years to come.
DeVoe & Company founder David DeVoe offered his perspective during a discussion at this year’s BNY INSITE conference in Aurora, Colo., stressing that firms’ ability to spend millions to develop artificial intelligence and other tech tools threatened to “move us into a have and have-not space.”
Additionally, the consolidation of the industry’s top RIAs will make it harder for firms with six-digit AUM totals (or even those in the billions) to compete.
“Private equity is going to continue to invest in this space, and more importantly, it’s going to start to shape this space,” he said. “We’ve seen those meta-firms, the top 25 firms or so, are really starting to have a broader set of capabilities.”
DeVoe was joined on the M&A-focused panel by Sam Anderson, the chief capital officer and co-head of Dynasty Investment Bank at Dynasty Financial Partners, Michael Wunderli, Captrust’s head of M&A, and Sean Keenan, head of sales for BNY Pershing’s Wealth Services Platform.
According to DeVoe, the rate of M&A activity in the wealth management space jumped 18% year-over-year in 2025, then rose again and has so far hovered between 18% and 24% in 2026. Private equity has taken an ever-larger role, with 89% of transactions over the last two years backed by private equity (or primarily funded by PE).
According to Wunderli, firms approaching Captrust mulling a sale all share the same root concern: they need to be able to offer their clients services they deserve (and increasingly expect) that the firms can’t deliver at scale.
“They can’t put millions of dollars into cybersecurity, which is going to become more and more of an issue, especially with the implementation of AI and everything else we’ve got going on,” he said. “So from the compliance and cybersecurity standpoint, there’s a feeling of worry that there could be some sort of event.”
According to Anderson, PE’s role in the space was increasingly taking the form of minority investments, in which non-controlling funding is supporting the growth led by a firm’s CEO who is not yet ready to sell. However, he didn’t believe “consolidation for the sake of consolidation” was needed, as significant technological development and access to high-quality partners meant independent practices didn’t face the same pressure to join a big firm.
“I don’t think there’s a squeeze on people feeling like they need to sell just to be competitive,” Anderson said.
In the wake of one of the market’s longest bull runs, which has turbocharged valuations, Wunderli warned that people are recognizing there will inevitably be a multi-year pullback. Firms are now planning accordingly with “forward-thinking teams” seeking investment bankers and going to market.
“Activity-wise, unless something external happens, it’s going to accelerate for a while,” he said. “Where does it go from here? Maybe the question is: What does it mean in terms of private equity? (If) firms get too big … are there going to be IPOs or will we have to have sovereign wealth funds come in?”
However, AI (the inescapable topic of every panel discussion and conversation at this and many other conferences this year) threatens to remake the board even further. DeVoe recalled working for American Express during the advent of the Internet, which dramatically affected the travel industry.
“There were thousands of these travel agents, and within about two years, they were all gone,” DeVoe said. “Could AI impact the RIA space to that magnitude? Probably not. Could it have a profound effect? Potentially.”
