A wealth management house operating in California and the Midwest extends its presence in the latter region.

Telemus Financial Life Management, with offices in Illinois, Michigan and California, has bolstered its Midwest presence by buying Barrington Strategic Wealth Group, for an undisclosed amount. The acquired firm has $350 million of assets.

BSWG is headquartered in downtown Chicago, a statement from Telemus, which is a metro Detroit-based firm, said in a statement. 

“Barrington Strategic Wealth Group’s separately managed account strategies will be just one of the many benefits we will be able to offer to Telemus clients from the acquisition,” Gary Ran, chairman and chief executive of Telemus, said. 

Founded in 2009, BSWG focuses on high net worth clients, and has been run since inception by Diana Joseph, who now joins Telemus as co-chief investment officer.

The acquisition is the latest in a number of merger and acquisition deals reported by this news service, with almost one M&A transaction a day, and a sign of a push for consolidation and economies of scale in a sector dealing with regulations and expanding client demands.  At the end of last week, for example, Tiedemann Wealth Management, a New York-based wealth advisor with about $12 billion in assets under advisement, agreed to buy Seattle-headquartered Threshold Group, a wealth-advisory firm and family office with $3.4 billion in assets under management.

Wider capabilities
“This transaction allows us to leverage the substantial operational capabilities of Telemus and Focus, provide robust manager due-diligence and research, add diverse separate account strategies to Telemus and sophisticated planning capabilities to Chicago,” Joseph said.

The acquisition is the latest strategic move for Telemus, which began working under the nationally known Focus Financial Partners in 2013. Under the Focus umbrella, Telemus is part of a network of independent firms. 

“Barrington Strategic Wealth Group marks the first significant transaction we’ve entered into since our partnership with Focus Financial,” Telemus’s Ran said.

Among recent M&A deals in wealth management are those of Associated Banc-Corp, which earlier in October agreed to acquire Whitnell & Co, a wealth management and multi-family office services firm based in Oak Brook, Illinois. The transaction is due to complete in November. California-headquartered Mercer Advisors, meanwhile, acquired a financial planning and investments firm, Ray Mignone Associates, with $290 million of assets under management. In September, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce completed its acquisition of a Chicago-based private wealth management firm, Geneva Advisors.