World Investment Advisors, an institutional and wealth-focused advisory firm that just recently rebranded from Pensionmark Financial Group, has acquired Boston Harbor Wealth Advisors, a Westborough, Mass.-based team with $3.5 billion in assets, 76 team members and 15 offices in the Northeast and Ohio. The team was previously affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services, the firm’s independent contractor channel.
Troy Hammond, CEO of World Investment Advisors, said the acquisition (and rebranding) is indicative of his firm’s evolution over the last two years. The RIA has $55 billion in total assets under advisement, but since it was acquired by World Insurance Associates in March 2022, the wealth portion of its business has grown from about $1 billion in assets to almost $12 billion today. When it was acquired, the institutional consulting business accounted for about three-quarters of its revenue; today, the wealth business is about 65% of its revenue.
“Two and a half years ago, Boston Harbor would probably not have been a good acquisition for us. Now it’s a great acquisition. We have the infrastructure, we have the wealth platform to support a large wealth practice like this,” Hammond said. “We grew up as an institutional consulting firm, and our name was Pensionmark, which fit really well with our core practice. But now, we’re 65% wealth. We’re probably going to be 90% wealth in the next three to five years.”
World has been very acquisitive, having done about a dozen deals in the last two years. Among those was Tomorrow’s Financial Services, a Lincroft, N.J.-based platform for financial planners and wealth advisors, with about $4 billion in assets and 25 staff members that it acquired in October 2023. That included TFS Securities, a broker/dealer.
Last August, the firm acquired Financial Solutions, an RIA in Waukesha, Wis., with about $950 million in assets.
Hammond said there are more acquisitions to come, as the firm continues to build out its wealth side. Ninety-five percent of the deals his firm is presented with are wealth-focused.
Also in August, World Insurance Associates announced that Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Charlesbank would be investing more than $1 billion into the company.
