M and A
Mercer Buys Another Women-Owned RIA As Acquisition Drive Continues
Mercer is the leading acquirer of RIA businesses at the moment, and it has also made a point of buying into women-owned wealth management organizations.
Acquisition-hungry Mercer Global Advisors, the Denver-based RIA, has acquired Empyrion Wealth Management, a business based in Roseville, California.
Empyrion focuses on serving the financial needs of family stewards, women in transition, and retirees. President and founder Kimberly Foss founded the firm in 2002; she and her team serve 90 clients with assets under management of approximately $250 million. The firm is the 15th women-owned advisory practice that Mercer Advisors has acquired since 2016. Empyrion was exclusively represented by Republic Capital Group, a leading financial services company and investment banker in the RIA space.
As well as being a businesswoman, Foss, CFP®, CPWA®, is author of Wealthy by Design: A 5-Step Plan for Financial Security. Foss has shared her financial expertise on media outlets, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, MSN Money, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily and US News & World Report.
“We wanted to join a leading national RIA to add more scale and leverage capabilities to our team and clients. I had known about Mercer Advisors for years through our shared relationship with Dimensional Fund Advisors and personally know David Barton, Mercer Advisors’ vice chairman, who leads mergers and acquisitions,” Foss said. “Their comprehensive `family office’ approach to client care with in-house services like estate planning, tax consultation and tax return preparation, etc., adds the depth and breadth of service I was looking for and allows me to offload burdensome back-office work so that I can focus on what is most important – my clients.”
Mercer has been on a busy M&A drive, as chronicled by this news service’s US correspondent, Charles Paikert. Set up in 1985, Mercer Global Advisors Inc is a subsidiary of Mercer Advisors, a business that is majority owned by Oak Hill Capital and Genstar Capital.
