WealthManagement.com reported that Cerulli research presented at Schwab Impact shows RIAs posting strong growth, even as many retiring advisors still lack succession plans. Read alone, that finding is a warning about one segment of the business. Read beside the rest of this coverage, it looks like one problem appearing in three places: how firms measure success, how they change hands, and who ends up owning them. The growth numbers are real, but the coverage suggests they may be explaining away the succession numbers.
InvestmentNews reported that Eric Godes of FP Transitions said the firm is seeing an escalation in M&A activity, and that RIA M&A could reach an all-time high in 2026. The forecast is a projection rather than a completed tally, and the coverage does not say how many transactions sit behind it. This column does not estimate that figure either. The point is the direction of travel that a dealmaker is describing from close to the market.
The deals in the coverage fit that picture without proving it. WealthManagement.com reported that Apella's 31st deal was for a $332 million Maryland RIA, and that Sequoia Financial added a $175 million Colorado-based wealth manager in the same roundup. Wealth Solutions Report reported that CAPTRUST added about $1.1 billion in assets by buying Pacific Sage Partners in Washington. The items attach these figures to the size of the firms rather than to deal terms, and none discloses a price, so readers should not infer valuations from them.
The growth measure is where the tension sharpens. Kitces.com's weekend reading flagged a Schwab survey of RIAs on its platform, which found that many firms are looking beyond assets under management to track their growth. The same newsletter cautioned that market-driven AUM growth can hide how a firm is performing on its own. If growth is measured in assets that rise with markets, a firm can look strong while its own client base is standing still.
That matters for succession because a practice that looks healthy on assets may be harder to hand over than it appears. In general industry terms, the assets a founder reports are not the same as the client relationships a successor must keep. A buyer or next-generation partner has to separate what markets contributed from what the advisor personally built. The coverage does not measure that split, and this column will not guess at it, but any firm weighing a sale or an internal transfer has to answer it.
The fix named in the coverage points inward. WealthManagement.com reported that Cerulli framed equity ownership as a route to closing the succession gap. That is a different answer from a sale. Equity ownership keeps the next generation inside the business, while an acquisition hands the practice to an outside buyer. Both appear as solutions in the coverage, and the reporting does not address how the two interact or which one a retiring advisor should weigh first.
The conference itself reflects another distraction. WealthManagement.com reported that Schwab Impact was dominated by artificial intelligence, with advisors debating whether the technology lives up to its promise. Whatever the answer, time and capital spent on tools are time and capital not spent on a handoff. That trade-off is this column's inference, not a finding in the coverage, but it is the kind of choice firm leaders now face when growth and succession compete for the same attention.
Three developments are worth watching. The first is whether the escalation in M&A that FP Transitions described shows up in announced deals over the coming months. The second is whether firms adopt the non-AUM measures that the Schwab survey describes, and whether those measures account for organic growth. The third is whether equity ownership plans reach the retiring advisors that Cerulli says lack them. Advisors weighing a move should ask which growth measure a prospective buyer or successor uses, and firm leaders should test whether their own numbers would hold up in a handoff.