Wealth Solutions Report reported that CAPTRUST Financial Advisors, a Raleigh, N.C. registered investment advisor, has acquired Pacific Sage Partners, an RIA based in Edmonds, Washington that advises on about $1.1 billion in client assets. The CAPTRUST item in the multi-topic Wealth Solutions Report newsletter is the deal story. The $1.1 billion figure measures client assets, not the price paid, and none of the coverage reviewed for this article discloses a purchase price.
The coverage gives different dates. FA Magazine reported the announcement on October 29, 2026. Wealth Solutions Report said a CAPTRUST spokesperson told it the transaction closed on September 30, which would place the closing before the public announcement.
The combined team is led by founder and CEO Mark Anderson. According to Wealth Management, other people named in the deal include William Cantus, president of Pacific Sage, financial advisers Colin Gray and James McBarron, and four client service staff members. Headcount is reported inconsistently. Wealth Solutions Report, citing the spokesperson, said the eight-person team includes three advisers. Wealth Management described the target as having eight advisers. The adviser count is unresolved in the coverage reviewed.
Wealth Solutions Report reported that the Pacific Sage name will not continue as a separate brand and that the team will operate under the CAPTRUST brand. The same report said Carolyn Armitage of Wealth Management Consulting served as Pacific Sage's fiduciary adviser on the deal, and that Carr Butterfield acted as legal counsel, according to CAPTRUST.
FA Magazine cited Anderson's company biography as saying he started his practice after working at Tradewinds Capital Management, an RIA based in Shoreline, Washington, and at Edward Jones. The same FA Magazine item gives a 2022 founding date for the firm, but its wording appears garbled, so the founding date remains unclear.
Wealth Management reported that CAPTRUST is majority owned by its employees, including founder and CEO Fielding Miller, with minority investments from the Carlyle Group and GTCR. The firm provides advice and investment management to individuals, endowments, foundations, nonprofit organizations and retirement plan sponsors. A CAPTRUST spokesperson told Wealth Solutions Report that, when the deal was announced, the firm's combined assets under management and assets under advisement stood above $1.3 trillion, and that CAPTRUST now counts more than 2,020 employees, among them over 870 advisers. That $1.3 trillion total combines AUM with assets under advisement, so it should not be read as AUM alone. Wealth Management separately reported that roughly $320 billion of client holdings are discretionary assets under management, according to the firm's most recent Form ADV.
According to InvestmentNews, as of mid-2025 the firm had about 1,900 staff and reached roughly five million plan participants through around 3,000 retirement plans, and private wealth management accounted for a larger portion of its business.
The Pacific Sage deal is part of a steady run of acquisitions. A CAPTRUST spokesperson said the firm has announced 10 M&A deals so far in 2026, compared with three in 2025. Earlier 2026 transactions reported by FA Magazine, PlanAdviser and InvestmentNews include Alpha Cubed Investments of Costa Mesa, California, which oversees about $3.8 billion and was announced in February; Meritage Portfolio Management of Overland Park, Kansas, with $2.4 billion in client assets and 17 staffers, a deal closed in December 2025 and announced in February; and Stillwater Capital Advisors of Devon, Pennsylvania, with $1.25 billion in assets under management and a six-person team, reported in May.
Before the deal, CAPTRUST had offices in Wenatchee and Bellevue, Washington, with 14 employees, including 10 advisers, across the two locations, the spokesperson said. Head of M&A Mike Wunderli told Wealth Solutions Report by email that the firm's M&A year has been strong and that he sees substantial opportunity for the rest of 2026 and in 2027.
Wealth Management also reported a separate acquisition in the same period, in which CAPTRUST bought two longtime affiliated RIAs in Melville, New York, with seven professionals and $1.2 billion in client assets combined. For Pacific Sage's team, the immediate change is the move to the CAPTRUST brand. For the wider market, the pace of regional deals by a large employee-owned adviser is a pattern worth tracking as further transactions are announced.