Wealth Enhancement, the Minneapolis-based registered investment advisor aggregator, has agreed to acquire Miramar Capital, an independent RIA headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. The transaction, announced this week, adds approximately $592 million in client assets, pushing the firm's total assets under management to roughly $159.4 billion. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Miramar Capital was founded in 2017 by Bob Kalman and Max Wasserman, who serve as senior portfolio managers. The firm specializes in a dividend-growth investment strategy emphasizing capital preservation and long-term compounding. Its clientele includes high-net-worth individuals, business owners, corporate executives, multigenerational families, and institutional accounts such as corporations and foundations.
Wealth Enhancement CEO Jeff Dekko said the deal aligns with the firm's research-driven investment culture, noting that Kalman and Wasserman have guided clients through multiple market cycles while maintaining a focus on long-range financial planning. "By joining Wealth Enhancement, they'll continue delivering trusted guidance while giving clients access to a broader range of planning, tax, estate, and wealth management capabilities," Dekko said in a statement.
Jim Cahn, chief strategy officer, added that the acquisition strengthens the firm's presence in the greater Chicago market. The Miramar deal follows closely on the heels of Wealth Enhancement's entry into Alabama, where it acquired a practice led by founder Don Cloud, adding roughly $462 million in client assets and establishing offices in Huntsville, Florence, and Gadsden. That practice serves many professionals tied to the region's aerospace and defense sector.
The pace of dealmaking continues even as Wealth Enhancement navigates a potentially transformative process: its own sale. Carlyle and Bain Capital are reportedly the final bidders vying to acquire the company at a valuation of roughly $7 billion including debt, a deal that would rank among the largest ever in the RIA space. The sale process, run by investment bank Evercore on behalf of current owners TA Associates and Onex, is said to be advanced, though it is not guaranteed to result in a transaction, and the owners could still choose to retain the business.
Wealth Enhancement's growth since TA Associates acquired the firm in 2019, when it managed about $11.8 billion in client assets, has come almost entirely through acquisitions of independent advisory practices. This pattern is common among private equity-backed platforms competing for market share against wirehouses and regional banks. The firm has recently absorbed two North Carolina practices representing nearly $1 billion in combined assets, as well as two teams spun out of the 88-year-old New York firm Shufro Rose, together accounting for more than $1.3 billion in client assets.
Industry observers note that the ongoing consolidation wave is reshaping the RIA landscape, with aggregators like Wealth Enhancement using acquisitions to expand geographically and deepen their service offerings. The firm's latest moves underscore its aggressive growth strategy, even as it weighs a potential change in ownership. For more on the competitive dynamics, see the bidding war for Wealth Enhancement and other recent RIA acquisitions.
