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Doug Ketterer
Atria Wealth Solutions CEO Doug Ketterer

Doug Ketterer’s Atria Wealth Acquires NEXT Financial Group

The deal, Ketterer’s fourth since 2017, brings Atria to a total 2,000 advisors and $65 billion in assets under administration.

Atria Wealth Solutions, the private equity-backed wealth management holding company launched by former Morgan Stanley executive Doug Ketterer in 2017, has acquired NEXT Financial Group, a Houston-based independent broker/dealer with about 500 advisors and $13 billion in assets under administration.

The acquisition, Atria’s fourth since it was launched in August 2017, brings the firm’s advisor head count to nearly 2,000, while assets under administration top $65 billion.

Letterer launched into the financial institutions channel last summer with the acquisition of sister b/ds CUSO Financial Services and Sorrento Pacific Financial, both based in San Diego. They have a combined $30 billion in assets under administration and 500 advisors at banks and credit unions.

Most recently, Atria acquired Cadaret, Grant & Co., a Syracuse, N.Y.-based independent broker/dealer with about 900 advisors and more than $23 billion in assets under administration. That deal, part of Atria’s strategy to do business in multiple advisor channels, brought the firm into the independent advisor space.

Atria Wealth Solutions, backed by private equity shop Lee Equity Partners, wants to build a new kind of independent broker/dealer model—not on indiscriminate acquisitions of existing registrations, but by carefully building a layer of support for independent advisors on top of a few well-chosen outposts for future acquisitions. Ketterer was named one of WealthManagement.com′s Ten to Watch in 2018.

NEXT President Barry Knight will remain in his current leadership role.

 

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