Dynasty Financial Partners announced Thursday that the firm has agreed to acquire another advisor transition and business management consulting firm, TruClarity Management Solutions, also based in St. Petersburg, Fla.
TruClarity Wealth Advisors, the sister RIA of the management solutions business, is expected to be sold separately to OneSeven, a Merchant Investment Management-backed firm that went independent with TruClarity Management Solutions.
Owned by TruClarity Holdings, TruClarity Management Solutions offers transition solutions and subsequent practice management expertise to breakaway wirehouse advisors and other financial advisors launching independent practices.
The management solutions practice, along with TruClarity President and CEO Pamela Stross, will join Dynasty, subject to conditions. Stross will stay on as a consultant and “select” TruClarity team members are expected to be added to the Dynasty team through the integration.
“I would call this an acquire/hire,” said Dynasty CEO Shirl Penney, who has known Stross a long time. “[Pam] is certainly one of the more seasoned and experienced female executives in the RIA ecosystem, and she brings tremendous experience in things like coaching and consulting, RIA principles on talent strategy, how to grow their business faster and how to be more efficient.”
With 35 open positions to fill, Penney said he expects to transition TruClarity employees into Dynasty’s marketing, operations, billing, practice management and client service departments. TruClarity employees will continue covering their existing clients and have the opportunity to take on more at Dynasty. It’s too early to tell how those clients might be impacted, he said, but he expects service levels to remain unchanged and pointed out that Dynasty’s broader model is well suited to firms in need of growth capital or a succession plan.
“We're not going to leave anyone hanging out there that needs support,” Penney said, “Especially anyone who might be in transition.”
As part of the transaction, Dynasty will also acquire the intellectual property of TruClarity, including marketing collateral, the website, transition processes and the firm’s lead pipeline.
In her new role, Stross will also play an integral part in helping attract more women to finance— and the RIA space in particular—through the Dynasty Women’s Network. Launched in 2020, the women’s network is an advocacy organization focused on networking, professional development and raising awareness about the benefits and pitfalls of working in wealth management as a woman.
“It’s a very important initiative for us,” said Penney.
“[Dynasty has] been leaders in wealth technology, platform services, capital, and business practice management offerings in the RIA space for over 12 years now,” Stross said in a statement. “I look forward to working with them to continue to help power the independent movement, and in particular to help inspire more female advisors to find their way to the independent side of our business.”
Penney doesn’t expect this to be the last such acquisition Dynasty makes. In fact, he said he would love to see more competing companies form and grow so that he might have the opportunity to buy those as well.
“We do hope that more entrants come into the space,” he said. “I’m not suggesting they would all sell to us, but certainly that's an opportunity set for us. Given our capital position and our balance sheet, we’re in a position to take advantage of those as they come along.”
When asked about scalability limitations imposed by the RIA platform business model, Penney said he was not concerned about that.
“We invented the integrated platform model, so we’ve kind of been out in front since we invented the category,” he said. “Our technology is built to scale, not only to add new advisors but to add new advisors to pre-existing firms. We believe that we’re going to have nationals eventually that are going to be Dynasty firms.”
When TruClarity became available, Penney said it didn’t take long to make that deal. “We still have to finish the diligence,” he said, “but both sides fully expect that we'll get to a point where Pam will be joining our team.”
Negotiations with OneSeven are expected to conclude any day now, said OneSeven President and Co-founder Todd Reznick.
“We're just kind of going through final details and due diligence when it comes to legal and financial,” he said.
Reznick and Stross have known each other since before the TruClarity-assisted launch of OneSeven in 2016, and Reznick said he was excited when the opportunity to buy the RIA presented itself last year.
“We've loved working with them,” he said of the management solutions business. “Pam and her team were just so valuable in helping us get off the ground and learn about the RIA space.”
The name TruClarity isn’t going anywhere, Reznick said. Per OneSeven’s acquisition model, the RIA will retain its original branding.