Private equity-linked deals accounted for nearly three-quarters of all activity, while US firms accelerated their international push into European and Australian markets.
The wealth management industry posted its highest quarterly deal count on record in the first three months of 2026, with 142 transactions announced – surpassing the previous high of 125 set in both the third quarter of 2025 and the fourth quarter of 2024, according to a new report from Echelon Partners.
The total volume of assets that changed hands during the quarter reached $1.67 trillion, more than double the $805 billion recorded in the same period last year – a 107% year-over-year jump.
Average assets under management per transaction came in at $1.8 billion, the highest figure since 2021, when the average deal briefly cleared $2 billion. Echelon projects that full-year 2026 deal volume will reach 475 transactions, edging past 2025’s record of 466.
The milestone came despite what Echelon described as macroeconomic headwinds and uncertainty in private credit markets, conditions that have historically weighed on deal activity. The report attributes the resilience during the quarter in part to a shift in how buyers are approaching acquisitions – less focused on raw scale, and more on assembling integrated service platforms that span tax, estate planning, family office, and institutional consulting.
Corebridge Financial’s all-stock merger with Equitable Holdings – the quarter’s largest transaction by a long shot, considering Equitable Advisors’ $1.1 trillion in assets – defined the dynamic. The deal, valued at approximately $22 billion, is structured to create a single company spanning retirement plan advisory, insurance, wealth management, and asset management serving more than 12 million clients.
Charles Schwab’s lastest minority investment in Dynasty Financial Partners, which manages a network of independent RIAs with $125 billion in combined assets, was another significant transaction. Half of the AUM on Dynasty’s platform is already custodied at Schwab, and the report described the deal – which also featured other 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.
Unsurprisingly, private equity remained a driving force in the quarter. PE-linked transactions – including both 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 for that category. Direct investments by financial sponsors, however, 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 in the quarter. RIA buyers alone announced 106 deals, representing 74.6% of total deal activity, with their average deal size growing from $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 to $1.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026.
Cross-border deals emerged as a notable theme. Creative Planning completed two international acquisitions in the first quarter: Swiss firm Baseline Wealth Management in January and UK-based MASECO, which manages more than $5 billion in assets, in March.
Among the most prolific acquirers in the quarter 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 the first quarter, though both were still active.
Wealth tech M&A also accelerated alongside RIA deal activity, with 49 transactions announced in the first quarter – 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 quarter’s notable wealth tech transactions, as was Vestwell’s mammoth $385 million Series F funding round.
“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.”
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