Private equity firm Lovell Minnick Partners is taking a majority stake in Americana Partners, an $8.5 billion Houston-based firm (and member of the Dynasty Financial Partners network). LMP will be the firm’s first owner outside of its founders and management team.
In a statement about the deal, Americana CEO Jason Fertitta called it an “important milestone” for the firm, with LMP and Americana sharing a “common vision” for what they want to accomplish for clients.
“We chose to work with LMP because of their extensive track record in accelerating growth for successful wealth management organizations, their deep bench of resources to support strategic acquisitions and their underlying philosophy as partners and investors,” Fertitta said.
Americana’s leadership team and employees will remain significant owners, while Fertitta and the rest of the leadership team will continue to run the firm after the deal.
A group of breakaway Morgan Stanley advisors founded Americana in 2019, making it the largest team to join Dynasty to that point. The group launched with seven advisors across three Texas offices.
Since then, the firm has continued to attract talent (including several big names from Morgan Stanley). The firm offers wealth advice and family office services (with experience in alts and traditional investment strategies). Americana works with high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients nationwide and recently opened a new division in Houston focusing on clients in Latin America.
LMP primarily works with high-growth, middle-market services and tech companies, with a particular focus on financial and business services and fintech firms. Founded in 1999, LMP has raised over $5 billion of committed capital and invested in more than 50 unique platform companies (and finalized more than 200 add-on acquisitions).
Current holdings include Pathstone, OneZero Financial and STP Investment Services (past investments the firm made include Mercer Advisors, Foreside and AssetMark, among others). LMP bought a majority stake in Pathstone in 2019 and helped the firm grow by $7 billion in managed assets in the first year. Since the LMP deal, it’s jumped from $15 billion to nearly $100 billion in assets as of earlier this year.
“Our investments are partnerships, and we are aligned with the Americana team’s high-growth strategic vision,” Lovell Minnick Partners Partner Trevor Rich said.
Piper Sandler & Co. operated as Americana’s exclusive financial advisor for the deal, while Winstead and Alston & Bird served as legal counsel for Americana and LMP, respectively.
