Merchant: The Quiet Force Behind the Industry’s Fastest-Growing RIAs

It’s not one of the flashy roll-ups or consolidators that dominate headlines in industry trades, but Merchant Investment Management has quickly and quietly become one of the most exciting growth stories in wealth management.

In just eight years, Merchant, whose founders include former Goldman Sachs and Apollo executives, has grown to encompass a portfolio with about 120 partner firms with over 5,000 advisors managing $300 billion in assets. This highly diversified portfolio of minority investments is a cash cow of recurring revenue with high growth rates generating an estimated $1.5 billion annually.

Even more telling is the caliber and performance of firms selecting Merchant as their partner. These include practices such as Washington, D.C.-based 72Capital, which has grown to $75 million in revenue over six years from just $3 million when its founders left Morgan Stanley, and Private Advisor Group, which manages $35 billion.

One defining feature is Merchant’s investment approach. It takes minority stakes in advisors’ practices that range up to a maximum of 25%, providing liquidity and capital for owners while ensuring incentives remain aligned between Merchant and the RIA. Importantly, advisors do not have to give up control.

Merchant’s other key differentiator is the level of support it provides to help partners grow. The firm has created an ecosystem of quality vendors by investing in approximately two dozen service providers across the industry, including investment bank Republic Capital Group, valuation firm WR Valuation, and trust administration service Sterling Trustees. It also holds stakes in firms offering cybersecurity support, compliance solutions, outsourced CFO services, and succession planning.

This represents the first RIA investing fund that truly functions as an active partner and community rather than merely a source of capital. Previously, it was almost impossible for RIAs and breakaway advisors to assemble all these resources independently or without relinquishing full ownership. They had to seek private equity sponsorship that would pressure firms to maximize returns in preparation for a sale after five to seven years.

Partner firms can also tap into the intellectual capital of Merchant’s all-star leadership team. The firm was launched by Marc Spilker and Scott Prince, both former Goldman Sachs partners. Spilker was Co-Head of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division who then served as President of private equity giant Apollo Global Management. The founding team also includes Tim Bello, a pioneer in the independent space who previously worked at SkyBridge and was an early-stage partner at Dynasty Financial.

Rick D’Amico, also from Skybridge, heads Merchant Credit partners, which offers creative financing terms for advisory practices. Managing Partner Matt Brinker was the Chief Business Development Officer for United Capital and instrumental in growing that firm from $300 million to $25 billion in assets. Others include David Mrazik, one of the nation’s leading attorneys in the independent space and Bryan Staff who helped grow PKS into one of the nation’s largest independent broker dealers.

These leaders are positioned to listen and offer support, not dictate how practices should be run or what products to offer clients.

Fresh off a capital raise, Merchant has a nearly $1 billion war chest and could double its size within the next few years. Eventually, there will be a liquidity event, perhaps one the largest Wall Street has seen in wealth management and certainly the largest for an RIA-focused firm.

No one should be betting against Spilker, who was responsible for the previous two largest IPOs in financial services: Goldman Sachs and Apollo. Breakaway advisors can still participate in this potentially historic event while still controlling their own firm and destiny.