Focus Financial Partners, the New York-based RIA aggregator, is continuing to consolidate by merging HoyleCohen, a San Diego-based partner firm with $3.6 billion in assets under management, into The Colony Group. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
HoyleCohen was created in 2001 when Kevin Hoyle and Joe Cohen merged their financial advisor practices. The RIA became a Focus partner in 2006. The firm now has over 60 team members and 1,700 client households.
“We have grown significantly since partnering with Focus in 2006,” HoyleCohen CEO and Senior Managing Partner Mark Delfino said in a statement. “As we evaluated the resources that our team needed to continue our pace of growth, we realized that partnering with a firm like Colony would help us accelerate the achievement of our firm’s goals and, most importantly, the life goals of our clients.”
Last year, Focus went private in a sale to private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice. Since CD&R took over, Focus has been consolidating its 90 independently operated subsidiary practices into a handful of its largest firms. Previously, Focus bought out the management teams of Colony and Kovitz and converted them to “hub” firms that will acquire other Focus partner RIAs.
Last month, Focus announced it would merge Gratus Capital, an Atlanta-based partner firm with $3.8 billion in AUM, into The Colony Group.
In March, Colony announced its merger with GW & Wade, a Wellesley, Mass.-headquartered RIA with $10.4 billion in assets. In April, Colony merged with InterOcean Capital Group, a Nashville-based RIA. That was followed by the merger with Buckingham in May. In June, Focus moved five business lines from Connectus to Colony, including Atlas Private Wealth Management, Connectus Private, Hunt Valley Wealth, Mid-Continent Capital and NEIRG Wealth Management.
Colony recently named Daniel Anderson, former CFO of Buckingham Strategic Wealth, as its new CFO, replacing Terri Feeney, according to public filings. Sal Papa, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Buckingham, will serve as Colony’s chief legal and risk officer, while Justin Ferri, president and COO at Buckingham, will serve as co-president alongside Zinovy Iosovich.
Last week, Focus announced it was promoting Travis Danysh, head of mergers and acquisitions and business development, to chief corporate development officer. He’ll report to Michael Nathanson, Focus’ CEO. Danysh continues to oversee Focus’ consolidation strategy.
