Last month, we reported on a deal that brought together one of the largest multi-family offices and a Portland-based investment consulting firm.  Being based here in Portland, Oregon we were naturally interested in the deal and now RIAbiz offers a more detailed look at how the acquisition fits into BMO Group’s Harris MyCFO business and how that multi-family office has evolved since its beginnings as simply MyCFO without the Harris Savings banking platform.

In a business where revenue is generated by a percentage of assets under management, it’s only natural that advisors seek to target clients with considerable assets. And indeed, some of the industry’s hottest firms, including Dynasty Financial Partners and HighTower Advisors LLC, flaunt the fact that they are attracting high-producing, corner-office wirehouse teams. Top firms in major wealth markets such as New York, the San Francisco Bay Area and Texas are increasingly competing in the ultrahigh-net-worth market for clients with at least $25 million in investible assets or $100 million in net worth.

But as a number of recent deals have underscored, the UHNW market is being convulsed by the same forces all RIAs are facing: consolidation, issues of size and scale, service offerings and fierce competition for market share.

The latest salvo in the high-end market was fired earlier this month by BMO Financial Group (Bank of Montreal), which agreed to buy top-tier investment consulting firm CTC Consulting LLC — a familiar name to RIAs from its days as part of U.S. Trust — and combine it with Harris myCFO Inc., the financial conglomerate’s Chicago-based multifamily office, which has approximately $18 billion in AUM.

While further realignment is expected, it remains to be seen whether the CTC-BMO deal is a harbinger of things to come.

Some in the industry point to CTC’s history to argue that its most recent deal will not serve as a template for others. Source

 

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