After beginning the yr with greater than half a billion {dollars} in managed belongings, Los Angeles area-based Falcon Wealth Planning has made the primary acquisition within the agency’s historical past.
The deal to purchase Rivermark Wealth Administration was accomplished on Thursday, eight years—nearly to the day—after Falcon was based by Principal Gabriel Shahin.
Shahin began out with eight purchasers and $5 million in AUM on March 5, 2015. In the present day, the Falcon group includes 45 individuals, together with 13 licensed monetary planners, overseeing near $600 million for greater than 800 purchasers and 14 retirement plans. The agency operates out of 14 workplace areas in California, Seattle, Chicago, Las Vegas and Tempe, Ariz.
Final yr, Shahin was a winner of the Wealth Administration Business Award’s Rising Star of the 12 months award.
Falcon’s inaugural acquisition expands the agency’s footprint within the San Francisco Bay Space and establishes a basis for continued progress within the nation’s Northwest, Shahin mentioned.
San Jose-based Rivermark was based by Ron Guay, who makes a speciality of tax planning and advises on about $250 million in shopper belongings. After starting his profession in company finance, Guay made the transfer to non-public finance and tax planning in 2018, when he launched his observe on the CGN platform, previously often called Garrett Funding Advisors.
In 2020, he moved to Prosperity Capital Advisors, an Ohio-based RIA platform with $1.7 billion in belongings, and formally grew to become Rivermark.
“What I’ve realized on the journey in finance, each company and shopper, is my success has been my capability to assist purchasers join their spreadsheets to their tales,” he mentioned in a press release.
Negotiations started in early 2022, and each events took their time making certain values had been aligned.
“I selected Falcon as a result of their technique of delivering monetary recommendation by way of schooling and empowerment aligns with my values and strategy as an advisor,” Guay mentioned. “Serving all purchasers on a fiduciary foundation, taking the time to actually perceive every shopper’s distinctive wants and priorities, and offering first-class tax and monetary recommendation is a formulation for making a optimistic impression and one thing I am excited to assist the agency convey to the Bay Space.”
Shahin mentioned he “bootstrapped” his technique to this milestone, eschewing broadly used RIA launching platforms and exterior financing to construct the agency himself from the bottom up.
Till now, Falcon’s progress has been completely natural, he mentioned, by way of shopper acquisition—bolstered by an aggressive advertising program to which Shahin dedicates as a lot as 15% of income—and focused “acqui-hires” that herald books of enterprise—primarily by way of the usage of LinkedIn.
“Our course of is every little thing,” Shahin mentioned of the advertising initiative, explaining that it yields between 700 and 800 leads every month.
“Now we have a group of 5 enterprise improvement individuals which might be simply actually on the telephones all day lengthy, setting appointments … we had 38 alternatives this week to transform to purchasers.”
Lately, Shahin has begun exploring a minority funding, “to take a number of chips off the desk.”
“Proper now, it’s at a degree the place I’m personally making much less cash at $600 million than I used to be at $100 million,” he mentioned. “My character is simply develop, develop, develop, reinvest, reinvest, reinvest. So, it will be good to not should suppose a lot in regards to the cash and do what my mindset is nice at, which is progress.”
He’s not ready to contemplate any majority investments at this level, nevertheless. “Lots of people simply need majority, which isn’t what I’m involved in,” he mentioned.
Shahin has been in conversations with a number of personal fairness traders however has issues about turning into oversaturated with capital meant for continued M&A transactions. One agency he’s in preliminary discussions with informed him he’s already working as a $2 billion AUM agency and recommended positioning Falcon as an acquisitive platform.
Whereas he’s involved in exploring extra M&A alternatives, Shahin mentioned: “We’re not an aggregator. Our aim isn’t just to make a fast revenue.”
“A agency that may be a great match could be client-first and have an actual ardour for planning,” he mentioned. “And we’re a fee-only store, so they might must be CFPs.”
Shahin, who was headed to Arizona to open a brand new workplace on Thursday, mentioned he totally expects to be at $2 billion in belongings throughout the subsequent 4 years, primarily by way of continued natural progress, however his imaginative and prescient will get “a bit of fuzzy” after that.
“From there, it is simply this huge reassessment as a result of it is a a lot completely different operation whenever you get to that degree,” he mentioned. “So, from there we simply form of determine what we need to do subsequent. I’ve been informed it’s going to turn out to be clearer.”