Mercer Global Advisors Inc. is on a buying spree. The Denver-based registered investment adviser today announced the purchase of Steward Wealth Management LLC, a comprehensive wealth management firm in Colleyville, Texas, that serves about 340 clients with $680 million in assets under management.
It is the second acquisition this week and the seventh so far this year for Mercer. On Monday, the firm announced that it had bought Private Asset Management Inc., a firm in San Diego with $720 million in AUM.
Co-founded by Dustin Stiefel and Vince Hawkins in 2005, Steward provides comprehensive wealth management services including financial planning, investments, tax and estate planning.
“Dustin and I, along with our terrific team, work together to provide our clients a high-quality customer experience, delivering the best financial advice through our talented team of highly credentialed professionals,” Hawkins said in a statement. “As my partners and I planned for the future, we realized we needed to add scale as well as more services for our clients.”
Hawkins said they found Mercer Advisors to be a “wonderful cultural fit” after meeting with David Barton, Mercer’s vice chairman, who heads up the firm’s M&A. He said Mercer’s service offering, such as in-house estate planning, tax planning and return preparation, were a big draw. “Like us, Mercer Advisors is dedicated to helping their clients achieve economic freedom, and they have put their money where their mouth is—around the client. We are extremely excited to be joining the Mercer Advisors team,” he added.
“Dustin and Vince have built a high-quality business staffed by an exceptional team of professionals,” Barton said. “The winners, in our opinion, are the clients. Steward is a respected and fast-growing firm, and they significantly bolster our Texas presence.”
Mercer Advisors Inc., a parent company of Mercer Global Advisors Inc., is majority owned by both Oak Hill Capital and Genstar Capital. The firm, established in 1985, has more than $48 billion in client assets, along with more than 900 employees in more than 70 offices across the country.