The Mather Group, a Chicago-based wealth management firm with 12 offices nationwide and more than $7.5 billion in assets under management, announced it has acquired two registered independent advisors with a combined total of $136 million in assets under management.
Founded in 2011 by Stewart Mather, the firm embarked on an acquisitive growth strategy in 2018, adding 17 firms since October of that year. In April of this year, a significant private equity investment by Vistria Group allowed TMG to further ramp up efforts to expand its services and geographic reach and add four new firms in as many months.
On Tuesday, TMG announced it acquired Seiffert Ltd., a $65 million AUM state-registered RIA in Bethesda, Md. Co-owners Perry Seiffert and Alexia Larson will join TMG, along with portfolio manager Kathy O’Brien.
Two days later, the firm announced the addition of Houston-based Semita Asset Management, along with CEO/CIO Michael Meager and Financial Planning Director Justin Reede, with $71 million in AUM.
Terms of the deals were not disclosed, but TMG does not offer equity to incoming advisors.
According to TMG CEO Chris Behrens, the geographical locations of the new additions, as well as characteristics of each firm made them attractive targets.
“They were just natural additions to our existing offices that we have in those two locations,” he said. “They’re both terrific wealth management teams that really fit the TMG model of being a financial planning firm first to meet clients’ goals and objectives.”
The new firms will adopt The Mather Group branding and immediately switch to TMG’s technology platform. Seiffert and Meager both expressed an eagerness to take advantage of the firm’s administrative support and in-house services such as asset and tax management, risk assessment and estate planning guidance.
“With a broader, deeper team of professionals supporting us, we can focus even more on our client relationships and personalized service needs instead of being involved in the many behind-the-scenes daily activities of managing a private business,” said Meager. “All this, combined with TMG’s growth trajectory, enhances our ability to serve clients’ families well into the future.”
“In addition to adding value for clients, this gives me the comfort to begin putting plans in motion for my own retirement,” said Seiffert, “knowing that Alexia won’t shoulder the full responsibility of managing both our clients and our business operations.”
TMG has grown its AUM from $1 billion to nearly $8 billion and quadrupled its client base over the last five years, according to Behrens. “That’s a result of not only M&A, but our internal, organic lead generation efforts to win new clients,” he said. “We believe that the marketplace has a strong appetite for our service offering and use both of those channels for winning new clients to grow our business.”
Currently, TMG has another seven or eight firms at various stages in its M&A pipeline, expected to close over the coming months—including one that’s set to be announced next week, Behrens said.
“We think that there are a lot of clients who are not clients yet at TMG who really do want our service offering and the value that our team is able to bring to them,” he said. “And our goal and objective is to continue to grow and scale until we can’t do that anymore, but we don’t ever see that ending.”
