The UK wealth management sector has seen a fresh wave of deal activity in recent months as US wealth managers and private equity-backed groups continue to expand into the market.
In September 2025, Miami-based Corient agreed to acquire Stonehage Fleming (which oversees $175 billion in assets) and Stanhope Capital Group ($40 billion AuM) in a deal that will take the enlarged group to around $430 billion in AuM, while in March, Kansas-based Creative Planning, which has roughly $700 billion in AuM, bought London-based MASECO Private Wealth in a move to expand its international client base.
Corient has also agreed to acquire Bedrock, lifting its assets further, while Chicago-headquartered asset manager Nuveen struck a £9.9 billion deal to acquire Schroders in February, creating a group with around £1.8 trillion in assets globally. The activity comes alongside NatWest’s purchase of Evelyn Partners’ wealth business – announced in February this year – for £2.7 billion with £750 million in share buybacks.
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In addition to these recent moves, analysis from 3Peaks Corporate Finance suggests that around £200 billion of client assets are currently held within PE-backed wealth firms that are expected to come up for exit by the end of 2027.
The trend reflects a broader consolidation dynamic that has been building across the sector for several years.
Baber Din, a partner at Deloitte, told Spear’s that American PE houses are increasingly attracted to UK wealth firms.
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‘This is driven by positive long-term demographic trends, the structural pivot from defined benefit pensions to savings, a fragmented market that is ripe for consolidation, and a recurring revenue fee model with long-term and loyal clients,’ he said. ‘A similar playbook has been successful in the US investment and wealth sector, hence US private equity looking across the pond.’
The trend is characterised by two parallel dynamics, Nick Dogilewski, an executive search specialist at Exeter Partners, told Spear’s. He said PE and investors are constantly looking for the next big area to deploy capital, with UK wealth and professional services firms standing out as particularly attractive, especially as the UK remains fragmented and lends itself well to consolidation.
On the one hand, he said, there has been a continued wave of PE-backed consolidation across fragmented UK advisory and wealth businesses – particularly those operating below £1 billion in assets. These firms are being brought into larger platforms, with centralised back- and middle-office functions and a stronger focus on scale, efficiency and branding under a single umbrella. He estimates there are now around 35 roll-up strategies operating in the UK market, where smaller firms are being bought and combined into larger groups, most of them driven by private equity investors.
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On the other hand, Dogilewski pointed to the trend of larger multi-family office and external asset manager-style wealth firms being acquired by US groups such as Corient and AlTi. The latter acquired Germany-headquartered multi-family office and asset management firm Kontora Family Office, which had about $15 billion in AuM, last year.
In these cases, he said, organic growth is simply too slow in the current market, making acquisitions the quickest way to build scale. The appeal, he added, is that firms can add significant assets under management quickly and lock in recurring revenues while also giving founders a way to realise value from years of work without having to fully step away.
Dogilewski said this feels less like a short-term cycle and more like a structural shift. ‘The sector has been in vogue, but valuations and multiples change,’ he said.
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He added that there is already some discussion that valuation multiples for professional services firms could come under pressure as AI starts to affect parts of the industry. Even so, he said the underlying business models remain broadly similar across markets, including in the US RIA space, which typically operates on a brokerage-style model where advisers receive payout ratios of around 50 per cent of revenues.
Dogilewski also pointed to the role of PE exit timelines in shaping deal activity. ‘For the partners and employees, there is the opportunity to cash in, and for some these are significant numbers.’ PE holding periods of around seven years, he added, ‘can feel too long for more senior bankers who may be thinking about retirement’, while for younger employees the proceeds are often more immediately useful, helping with things like paying off mortgages.
For boutique and mid-sized UK wealth managers, the question is therefore whether independence can realistically be maintained over the long term or whether consolidation is increasingly becoming the default route.
Dogilewski said new independent firms will continue to emerge, often founded by advisers leaving larger institutions in search of greater autonomy. But, he added, consolidation can create tensions on the client side. ‘Certain clients will not like their accounts being held in something so big,’ he said, adding that some may feel they are ‘just a number’ within larger roll-up platforms.
For Din, it is still entirely possible for mid-sized and boutique firms to remain profitable. He noted that even relatively small wealth managers or advisers operating under appointed representative models can sustain viable businesses.
However, he added that succession and retirement pressures often drive outcomes, particularly where owners are looking to crystallise value. ‘It’s a case of willing sellers and buyers,’ he said, pointing to a strong acquisition market driven by attractive recurring revenue models. Forced sales, he added, tend to be rare and are usually linked to regulatory or leverage issues rather than market dynamics.
Looking ahead, Dogilewski said the next three to five years are likely to see continued consolidation as owners of boutique firms ‘look to cash in on their hard work’.
He anticipates that PE firms will keep rolling up wealth managers, with the key question increasingly becoming who eventually buys the larger platforms (whether that is other financial sponsors or international and domestic banks looking to grow more quickly in the sector, for example).
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Din also expects consolidation to continue given how fragmented the UK market still is. He predicts that the sector will be shaped more by regulation and technology in future, with AI in particular likely to speed up deal activity as larger firms look to improve efficiency at scale.
‘The exits of the current generation of PE-backed wealth managers are underway, and there are many more due to come to market over the next few years,’ he said, adding that while many deals today are still PE-to-PE transactions, trade buyers and IPOs are expected to become more common as firms reach scale.
