RIA Buyers Predict Valuation Flatline
Consolidators in the wealth management industry expect a years-long rise in registered investment advisor valuations to finally flatline in the latter half of 2026.
According to a survey released by DeVoe & Company on Thursday of 40 RIA executives from consolidators, 82% anticipate stable RIA valuations, 18% expect declines, and none expect increases.
The shift marks a notable change from 2025, when 8% of consolidators—defined as serial acquirers with acquisition strategies central to their business models—expected higher valuations, according to the industry M&A consultancy and investment bank.
“The 2026 results suggest the market is entering a new phase,” DeVoe analysts wrote in the report. “After four years of record-high valuations, buyers continue to expand their pipelines, but expectations around pricing are becoming more measured.”
According to DeVoe, the current buyer pool yields an unusually wide range of valuation outcomes. Internal succession transactions anchor the lower end, while strategic RIA acquirers pay materially more, and PE-backed consolidators typically pay the highest valuations when sellers hire investment bankers to run competitive processes.
The transactions commanding high multiples, north of 20x, typically involve firms managing tens or hundreds of billions in assets, with exceptional growth, profitability, leadership teams and strategic attributes that most sellers do not possess, according to DeVoe.
Brett Zaniewski, co-founder of investment bank and consultancy Decerno Advisors, agreed that valuations may have “peaked,” but emphasized that they are not down.
“With the platforms firmly trading in the low to mid 20s, they are obviously not going to do anything that isn’t accretive, so multiples peaking isn’t surprising, but the market is still very competitive,” Zaniewski wrote in an email.
He also said valuations are just one piece of a deal, with buyers using other levers to sweeten the pot.
“We see buyers being very flexible on cash/equity mix, granting equity to 2nd gen, and increasing earnouts to find ways to make deals more favorable for sellers,” he said.
According to DeVoe’s survey, larger RIAs will remain a top target amid the deal frenzy, with 46% of consolidators seeking firms between $1 billion and $5 billion in assets under management.
“Notably, no respondents identified firms with less than $500 million in AUM as their primary acquisition target, underscoring how decisively buyer demand has shifted upmarket,” the DeVoe team wrote.
In addition, respondents report an expectation gap between what they are willing to pay and what they believe RIA sellers expect them to pay. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of consolidators say the gap between what sellers expect and what buyers are willing to pay is widening, while just 9% believe the gap is narrowing and 18% see little meaningful change, the survey found.
The disconnect, according to the DeVoe analysts, stems partly from years of record transaction volume and headline-grabbing valuations that have shaped seller expectations, particularly the premium multiples private equity pays for RIAs.
In its report, DeVoe also reported the strongest first half of M&A deals in the RIA space on record at 167, which is 13% higher than 2025’s blistering pace. However, it also found that second-quarter activity tapered to 74 transactions, just one more than the same period 2025.
“Despite a slowdown in the second quarter, the underlying drivers of RIA M&A haven’t changed,” CEO David DeVoe said in a statement. “Buyers still have capital to deploy, sellers still face the same growth and succession challenges, and we continue to expect transaction activity to remain historically strong.”
Jim Gold, the CEO of Steward Partners, said in a recent interview that he believes there is much more deal activity than is often reported by the various banks and consultancies because firms don’t always release it.
Even if there is underreporting, others are predicting a robust 2026 for dealmaking. M&A consultants at Marshberry recently forecast that the wealth management sector is on track to top 400 deals in 2026, the most since it started tracking them in 2020.
