The deal might not have occurred were it not for Advisor Group, which had a long-standing relationship with SEIA and Holmes since 2018, when the Phoenix-based Advisor Group acquired SEIA’s former broker-dealer, Signator Investors. A year ago, Jamie Price, CEO at Advisor Group, saw the tremendous growth of SEIA in a short period and identified the opportunity for expansion. He suggested that Holmes seek out an equity partner.
“We approached them about a year ago to help them explore options to grow organically and inorganically,” Price said.
Advisor Group will become an investor in SEIA upon the closing of the deal and provide transitional resources as well as M&A resources as those become necessary. In addition, Advisor Group will continue to work with SEIA as it has over the past several years.
Holmes said the investments from Reverence and Advisor Group will allow his firm to expand not only in investments, but geographically. SEIA has eyes on opening more offices in California and beyond, including Texas and New York, he said.
As for investments, Holmes has a goal to break into the family office space, which has been seeing significantly more interest in the past few years.
“It is time for us to get involved in a family office setting,” he said.
He said he wants to provide more investable products for high net-worth clients, institutional pricing, alternative investments, and elevated client-facing technology.
To accommodate growth, Holmes said his firm will bring in new RIAs who can operate on SEIA’s new enhanced platform. He did not say how many he wants to bring in.
Price and Berlinski expressed confidence in Holmes’ ability to expand his platform into the high-net-worth space and grow his business on multiple fronts. Berlinski said that so long as Holmes stays true to what helped generate his growth initially, he will be successful.
“If you do well by your clients all the rest will fall into place,” he said. “If they continue to do what they do really well and serve their clients, we are highly confident this will be a mutually successful partnership.”