The wealth management industry recorded its highest-ever quarterly M&A deal count in the first three months of 2026, with 142 transactions announced, according to a new report from Echelon Partners. This surpassed the previous record of 125 deals set in both the third quarter of 2025 and the fourth quarter of 2024. The total volume of assets that changed hands reached $1.67 trillion, more than double the $805 billion recorded in the same period last year, representing a 107% year-over-year increase.
Average assets under management per transaction climbed to $1.8 billion, the highest figure since 2021, when the average briefly exceeded $2 billion. Echelon projects that full-year 2026 deal volume will reach 475 transactions, edging past 2025's record of 466. The milestone was achieved despite macroeconomic headwinds and uncertainty in private credit markets, conditions that have historically weighed on deal activity. The report attributes the resilience to a shift in buyer focus—less on raw scale and more on assembling integrated service platforms spanning tax, estate planning, family office, and institutional consulting.
Corebridge Financial's all-stock merger with Equitable Holdings was the quarter's largest transaction, considering Equitable Advisors' $1.1 trillion in assets. The deal, valued at approximately $22 billion, creates a single company covering retirement plan advisory, insurance, wealth management, and asset management, serving more than 12 million clients. Charles Schwab's minority investment in Dynasty Financial Partners, which manages a network of independent RIAs with $125 billion in combined assets, was another significant deal. Half of the AUM on Dynasty's platform is already custodied at Schwab, and the report described the transaction—which also included backers such as BlackRock, JPMorgan, and newcomer Fortress Investment Group—as a potential step toward building a vertically integrated structure from the custodian level down to individual advisors.
Private equity remained a dominant force. PE-linked transactions—including direct investments and deals involving PE-sponsored buyers—accounted for 71.8% of all activity, with 95 PE-sponsored transactions setting a new all-time high. Direct investments by financial sponsors ticked down to seven from nine the prior quarter. The largest of those was Carlyle's majority acquisition of MAI Capital Management, a $72.6 billion RIA, which now carries more than one private equity sponsor after former backer Wealth Partners Capital Group retained a minority stake.
Strategic acquirers, primarily RIAs buying other RIAs, continued to set the pace, making up 95.1% of all transactions. RIA buyers alone announced 106 deals, representing 74.6% of total activity, with their average deal size growing from $1 billion in Q4 2025 to $1.7 billion in Q1 2026. Cross-border deals emerged as a notable theme. Creative Planning completed two international acquisitions: Swiss firm Baseline Wealth Management in January and UK-based MASECO, which manages more than $5 billion in assets, in March. This trend aligns with broader shifts in wealth management, as highlighted in the EY Report: AI, Wealth Transfer, and Self-Direction Reshape Wealth Management by 2030.
Among the most prolific acquirers were Carson Wealth with eight transactions, Beacon Pointe Advisors with seven, and Cerity Partners and Savant Capital Management with five each. Savant, which notched a milestone acquisition with Exencial Wealth Advisors in March, has already surpassed its full-year 2024 deal count of four after just one quarter. Wealth Enhancement Group and Mercer Advisors, which led the 2025 leaderboard with 20 and 17 deals respectively, appeared to take a breather in Q1, though both remained active.
Wealth tech M&A also accelerated, with 49 transactions announced in Q1, up from 35 in the same period last year. Investment was increasingly concentrated in AI-driven tools for advisor workflows, including agentic meeting assistants, client analytics, and compliance automation. Venture-backed raises for advisor-focused platforms Jump and Zocks were among the notable wealth tech transactions, as was Vestwell's $385 million Series F funding round. This surge in tech investment reflects the growing importance of productivity gains, as noted in the Direct Indexing Assets Hit $1.2 Trillion report.
"Capital is flowing decisively toward AI-native tools that automate advisor workflows rather than bolt-on analytics," Echelon said. "With advisor headcount growth flat and practice economics under pressure, buyers and strategics increasingly view AI-driven productivity gains as the next durable source of operating leverage in wealth management."
