WealthManagement.com reported that Creative Planning, the Overland Park, Kansas-based wealth manager, has acquired Rockbridge Investment Management, a fee-only registered investment adviser in Syracuse, New York. Citywire RIA also covered the transaction. According to Creative Planning's announcement dated November 4, 2026, Rockbridge's acquired book is about $2.2 billion in assets under management and includes 23 employees. The transaction closed on November 2, two days before the announcement.
Neither the announcement nor the trade coverage reviewed gives a purchase price. The $2.2 billion figure is an assets under management measure, not the cost of the deal. WealthManagement.com characterizes the deal as a conventional purchase by a U.S. buyer, set against a backdrop of sizeable add-ons abroad and in adjacent wealth-management businesses. Alaris Acquisitions served as exclusive M&A adviser to Rockbridge, and Michael Stanczyk of Lynn D'Elia Temes & Stanczyk was its legal counsel, according to the announcement.
Creative Planning said Rockbridge clients will keep their current advisors and gain access to the firm's affiliated tax, estate, legal, trust and retirement plan services. Mallouk, Creative Planning's chief executive, said the combination lets Syracuse-area families access integrated tax and estate planning. Rohe and Carroll, who lead Rockbridge as chief executive and managing partner, said in a joint statement that they reached the decision after an initial discussion with Mallouk and that their outlook on the direction of the RIA sector matches his.
WealthManagement.com reported that Rockbridge is owned by its own staff, with Rohe and Carroll the biggest equity holders, and that Charles Schwab serves as custodian for client assets, according to the firm's latest Form ADV. Rockbridge's own account dates the firm to 1991, when Craig Buckhout and Bob Ryan began it in a garage under the name Disciplined Capital Management. The firm says it was later merged with Disciplined Capital Management and added an institutional arm, Rockbridge Institutional. It reports six partners and says it has a succession plan. Rohe was named chief executive after becoming a partner, and Nick Stancato was added as a partner and chief operating officer.
The regulatory filings show a smaller figure than the announcement. Rockbridge's Form ADV, filed July 14, 2026, reports $1.8 billion in regulatory assets under management across 4,133 accounts, with 97% managed on a discretionary basis. The filing also counts 1,518 individual clients, and 316 of those are high-net-worth; the firm had 18 staff, 13 of whom do advisory work. It reports two offices and no broker-dealer affiliation, and it shows Schwab holding about $1.5 billion of separately managed account assets as custodian. Rockbridge reports no disciplinary disclosures in Item 11 of its Form ADV. The sources reviewed do not reconcile the regulatory figure with the $2.2 billion announced. A third-party aggregator gives a 1997 founding date, which conflicts with the 1991 date in Rockbridge's own materials.
Creative Planning is a much larger buyer. Its most recent Form ADV, as cited by a regulatory data provider, shows about $295.6 billion in regulatory assets under management as of December 31, 2025. The firm's own release says it had more than $780 billion in assets under management or advisement as of June 30, 2026. The firm was founded in 1983. Mallouk has led it since 2004, when he acquired it, and he controls it through trusts. TPG took a substantial minority investment in September 2024, with Mallouk retaining a majority stake.
The Rockbridge deal continues a pattern of frequent acquisitions. Creative Planning's Burt Wealth deal, announced December 2, 2025, added $1 billion in assets and was described as its 15th acquisition in two years. The Financial Abundance deal, announced in October 2025, added over $275 million and was its 14th in two years. On September 15, 2026, the firm agreed to acquire RVK, an institutional consultant with about $4.3 trillion in advised assets, with Goldman Sachs as exclusive financial adviser and closing expected in January 2027. According to WealthManagement.com, Mallouk told a summer conference he is not planning to list Creative Planning on a stock exchange.
What comes next is not spelled out in the material reviewed beyond the client arrangements the firm described. Rockbridge's clients are set to keep their advisors, and the sources do not give an integration timeline or any post-closing changes to the firm's structure. The divergence between the $2.2 billion announced figure and the $1.8 billion regulatory filing is likely to matter for anyone tracking the firm's reported size.