Evoke Advisors is acquiring Crescent Bay Advisors, a California-based multi-family office, boosting its ability to offer family office services to clients.
Evoke is a $25.3 billion RIA that works with ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families. It was founded in 2019 by several breakaways from First Republic. The combined firm will be based in Los Angeles, with additional offices in Orange County, Calif. and West Palm Beach, Fla.
According to Evoke co-founder and Managing Partner David Hou, the Crescent Bay Advisors deal will add a family office services team for clients.
“We are confident, based on our long history with the partners of CBA, that their expertise and quality of service will seamlessly integrate with Evoke’s services to support the full range of client financial needs and protection of their family legacy,” Hou said.
CBA founder and President Larry Abrahams will join Evoke as a managing partner, along with Hou, Mark Sear, Eric Bright, Darell Krasnoff, Andrew Palmer, Alex Shahidi and Damien Bisserier.
According to Abrahams, the firm was pleased to “officially formalize” its partnership with Evoke, which began with CBA’s founding in 2009 when Hou and his partners were still affiliated with First Republic. CBA offers services ranging from estate planning, personal accounting, bill pay and risk management.
In 2022, Crescent received a minority investment from Merchant Investment Management. The firm pledged to use Merchant’s connections to scale their family office business, with Merchant Managing Partner Matt Brinker saying at the time that adding CBA’s services to Merchant firms was a “mutual win” for both businesses.
In June, Merchant co-founder and Managing Partner Tim Bello told WealthManagement.com the firm was in the process of completing a recapitalization and expected to double its balance sheet (though partners wouldn’t be selling any equity as a result). Merchant takes minority, non-controlling stakes in RIAs, partnering with about 100 firms since its launch about seven years ago.
After the recap, the firm’s leadership expects to double the number of investments over the next several years. (Bello also hopes to take the firm public in a few years.)
Last month, Merchant announced a minority, non-controlling stake in the Republic Capital Group, which provides investment banking assistance to wealth and asset management firms. In October, the Merchant-backed Apollon Holdings, a South Carolina wealth management firm with about $8.2 billion in managed assets, merged with CIC Wealth, a Maryland-based RIA with about $900 million in advisory and brokerage assets.
