Free guide
The RIA M&A Landscape: 2026 Edition
Record valuations, new buyer types, and what a seller should know before the first conversation.
What's inside
RIA M&A set records again: the two most active quarters ever recorded landed in the first half of 2026, and the median transaction priced at a record 11.6x adjusted EBITDA in 2025. This fully updated edition maps the four buyer types and what each pays for, the multiple ladder band by band, how 2026 deals are actually structured, and the seller's process from readiness to close.
- The 2026 market in five numbers, from record multiples to rising equity consideration
- Consolidators, PE-backed platforms, banks, and peer buyers, and what each pays for
- The multiple ladder: what moves a firm up a band
- Cash, equity rollover, and earnouts, and what a headline multiple actually nets
- The 90-to-150-day sell-side process, and the ten questions sellers should ask buyers
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The 2026 market, in brief
Demand from buyers is the highest it has ever been, and at the same time buyers are publicly debating whether multiples have peaked. The median RIA transaction priced at a record 11.6x adjusted EBITDA in 2025 across roughly 276 deals, premium platforms transact in a 9-16x band, and equity averaged about 29% of consideration and is rising. That combination makes timing a real variable in a seller's outcome, and it rewards owners who prepare two to three years before they need a process.
Who is actually buying
Four buyer types dominate: consolidators running national platforms, who pay for durable EBITDA and offer the deepest structure menus; private-equity-backed platforms, the multiple setters, whose equity-rollover pitch turns on the sponsor's five-to-seven-year exit clock; banks and strategics buying geography or capability; and peer RIAs or internal successors, the continuity path, newly viable at size thanks to non-dilutive financing. The guide walks each one, including the diligence question that matters most for each.
What separates an offer from an outcome
A 9x headline with a third in equity and a quarter in an at-risk earnout is not the same transaction as 9x cash. The guide's structure chapter models the downside, base, and sponsor-exit cases, and its process chapter maps the 90-to-150-day sell-side arc: valuation and proceeds modeling, confidential buyer curation, term sheets, diligence, and close.
Common questions
What multiples are RIAs selling for in 2026?+
The median RIA transaction priced at a record 11.6x adjusted EBITDA in 2025, per deal-series data reported in the trade press, with premium scaled platforms transacting in a 9-16x band and smaller founder-dependent practices below the median. Revenue quality, growth rate, and founder dependency move a firm between bands more than headline size does.Who are the main buyers of RIA firms right now?+
Consolidators and aggregators, private-equity-backed platforms, banks and strategic acquirers, and peer RIAs or internal successors. Each pays for something different: consolidators for durable EBITDA and retention, PE platforms for growth and recurring revenue quality, strategics for geography or capability, and internal buyers for continuity.How long does it take to sell an RIA?+
A competitive, well-prepared sell-side process typically runs 90 to 150 days from readiness to close. The qualifier is readiness: clean financials, mapped client concentration, and current team agreements. Most of the value in a process is created before the first buyer conversation happens.Should I take equity in the buyer as part of the deal?+
Equity averaged roughly 29% of deal consideration recently and is rising, and it can be the best or worst part of a transaction. The questions that decide it: equity in what entity, valued how, with what liquidity rights, and what happened to equity holders in the platform's last recapitalization. Your second transaction is decided the day you sign the first.
Flagship research
The full picture lives in The State of Advisor Movement.
Six months of measured advisor movement: the firm-by-firm ledger, destination channels, deal economics, and the rent-or-own framework, in an interactive edition and a 41-page print edition. Both free.