Hamilton Lane-Savant deal flags new PE exit route for RIAs

A decade after Cynosure Partners’ initial investment in Savant Wealth Management, the private equity firm is now leveraging a continuation fund led by Hamilton Lane to inject further capital into the RIA aggregator.  

Cynosure’s single-asset continuation vehicle of $270 million invested into Savant is fully funded by Hamilton Lane, the alternative investment manager that oversees $1 trillion in assets. The strategy to provide liquidity comes as Savant manages over $57 billion, making it 25-times larger than its size during Cynosure’s initial investment in the RIA 10 years ago.  

“I think we are going to see these types of announcements more and more in the RIA space,” M&A strategist Corey Kupfer told InvestmentNews. “Investors in PE [private equity] funds are usually looking to take returns on their investments in 5-7 years, often with a 10-year maximum end date for the fund — subject to certain extension rights.” 

Illinois-based Savant appears to be the first RIA to garner investment from Hamilton Lane, but the asset manager has investments in adjacent products that impact financial advisors. For example, Hamilton Lane in an investor in CAIS, the alternatives platform used by over 2,500 wealth management firms, representing over 65,000 financial advisors,and has also backed fintechs such as Tifin and Canoe Intelligence. 

Continuation vehicles face SEC probe

Hamilton Lane’s capital into Savant via Cynosure’s continuation vehicle comes amid regulatory scrutiny into the private equity strategy. According to a June 2026 report from Reuters, the SEC has opened an investigation into certain continuation vehicle transactions, examining potential conflicts of interest, how fund managers are valuing assets, and whether investor disclosures are adequate. 

“As PE investment in RIA firms matures and there is not a monetization event via IPO or sale of their portfolio RIA firm investments or a new PE sponsor or other investor (like a sovereign wealth fund) higher up the sponsor ladder interested in coming in, these continuation funds become one of the few options PE funds have to be able to get capital back plus returns to their early investors,” added Kupfer, founder of the New York-based law firm Kupfer., PLLC

Manager-led secondary deals, the bulk of which are continuation vehicles, totaled $106 billion last year, up from $70 billion in 2024, according to investment bank Evercore. Matt Malone, head of investment management at Opto Investments, recently told InvestmentNews that his firm has mostly “stayed away from the continuation vehicle space.” 

“I think especially if you’re doing a single asset continuation vehicle, it’s very difficult as an outside investor to really know what’s going on with that business unless you’ve been following that business for a very long time,” said Malone, whose firm builds private-markets programs for independent advisors and multifamily offices. 

Cynosure Group’s portfolio beyond Savant includes investments in the hybrid RIA Steward Partners and the new RIA Threadline Wealth that launched this year. According to the Q2 2026 DeVoe RIA Deal Book, Savant’s eight acquisitions have tied it with Hightower and Beacon Pointe as the most active RIA acquirers during the first half of this year.  

Employees remain the largest shareholder in Savant Wealth Management after its latest capital from Hamilton Lane. In August 2025, Savant CEO Brent Brodeski told InvestmentNews that Kelso & Company and The Cynosure Group hold a combined stake of around 30% in the RIA. 

“It is difficult to find private investors that are truly long-term oriented and supportive of employee-owned organizations,” Brodeski said in a statement. “We are fortunate to have two in Cynosure and Kelso. Savant is over 25x larger today than it was when Cynosure invested ten years ago, and we believe we are still in the early innings.”