In a deal expanding Mercer Advisors’ presence in the Central U.S., the Denver-based firm acquired RMR Wealth Advisors, a comprehensive wealth management firm in Madison, Wisc., with $350 million in assets under management, a Mercer statement said.
The registered investment advisor was founded in 2009 by Erik Mikkelson, a certified financial planner, who was joined in 2021 by two co-owners, Douglas Giageos, CFP and chief compliance officer, and Lisa Sowls, according to the firm’s latest ADV filing.
The majority of the firm’s assets come from high-net-worth individuals, while individuals, pension plans and charities account for less than 10% of the assets under management, the filing reported. All in all, the firm services roughly 150 clients in retirement planning, wealth management, family financial services and business planning.
Mikkelson said his firm had grown as much as it could on its own, prompting the sale.
“We realized we had hit a growth inflection point and had to either significantly reinvest in the company or join a firm that had already successfully created the scale and leverage,” he said in the statement. It was Mercer’s in-house family service offerings, which included estate planning, tax planning and return preparation, and corporate trustee services that he said he found attractive in a partner.
David Barton, the Mercer vice chairman who lead the acquisition said that Mikkelson, Giageos and Sowls had already built a high-service family office proposition when they approached Mercer.
“In this way they looked a lot like Mercer Advisors, and we shared the same mission, vision and values of putting our clients’ interests first and then surrounding them with a panoply of professionals to help provide outsized results for them,” he said in the statement. “In short, they are a great fit and add a great team to our already deep bench of talent."