CAPTRUST Financial Advisors today announced that it has acquired Warren, N.J.-based Portfolio Evaluations Inc. (PEI), a competitor with more than $107 billion in assets and more than 250 clients, primarily in the retirement paln space.
The deal closed late last year, at which time PEI took on the CAPTRUST brand, according to a news release.
The 30-year-old firm PEI is led by co-founders and partners Attila Toth, Michael Sasso, and Rich Torbinski. It provides advice, guidance, direction, and education to the fiduciaries of institutional investment programs, including retirement plans, foundations, endowments, and family office groups.
Sasso, in an interview with Financial Advisor, said the partnership is about scale. “It’s about offering services that our clients are asking for that PEI didn’t have,” he said. He said over the past years, it became clear that they were lacking in the areas of participant communication and education.
“I think even though there is so much time and energy spent on trying to educate participants through tools on websites, etc., a lot of them are still lost when it comes to how do they manage their 401(k) plans,” he said. “We thought that was a big hole at PEI and we knew CAPTRUST had a phenomenal offering that could fill the gap,” he said, adding that CAPTRUST also has other expanded resources in the areas of unqualified plan and alternatives that PEI’s clients could benefit from.
Sasso said he, Toth and Torbinski will be principals at CAPTRUST and responsible for running the Warren office, which will have about 11 consultants. He said PEI’s 47 employees will join CAPTRUST.
He noted that when they decided to make the strategic move for their business, they looked at 10 firms that they competed with and against for several years. They narrowed it down to six and then to three, he said. But it was clear from every step of the way that CAPTRUST was the forerunner, he said.
“We universally said, “Look, at every stage, CAPTRUST is the firm that most closely aligns with PEI’s core values, corporate culture and everything that goes along with that,” he said. “Every interaction that we had at CAPTRUST, everyone has been phenomenal to work with and they are all working to help each other, and that’s the environment we have at PEI and that really resonated with me and the other two partners.”
“We are excited. The more interactions that we have with CAPTRUST, the more it confirms we made the right decision. There is no second guessing,” he added.