Coming off a busy 2024 with seven acquisitions, EP Wealth Advisors made its first purchase of the new year, adding Nashville-based Criterion Capital Advisors to its platform along with an additional $500 million in assets under management.
This move is part of a larger expansion effort for EP Wealth, a Torrance-based wealth advisory firm, to grow its presence in the Southeast.
After partnering with two private equity firms in 2017 and in 2020, EP Wealth began rapidly making acquisitions of wealth management firms across the country. Choosing add-ons for its platform has boiled down to finding firms with alignment in business model, culture, reputation and that bring something to the table such as local expertise, according to Ryan Parker, chief executive of EP Wealth.
“What it comes down to is finding people who are like minded in things that matter most in business and embracing what makes them different so that diversity matters, and then work at it,” Parker previously told the Business Journal. “That’s how you can maintain a core sense of a culture as you grow nationwide.”
Criterion fit the bill with its 20-year history of providing tailored financial and tax planning as well as investment services.
“Criterion is the latest example of a firm built on personalized service that helps clients work toward achieving their long-term financial goals,” Parker said in a statement. “Through our combined efforts, we are well positioned to serve even more families in the Southeast.”
Previous acquisitions in Atlanta, South Carolina and Florida kickstarted this regional goal.
Criterion’s existing management team will continue to lead operations at the Nashville post.
“We have grown our business by focusing on putting the client’s best interest first,” Criterion co-founder Allan Horner said in a statement. “In EP Wealth, they share that value. We’re excited to be part of EP to both potentially expand our breadth of services and provide deeper partnerships.”
Over the last few years, EP Wealth has also been active in the West Coast, East Coast, Dallas and the Midwest.
Since it began making acquisitions eight years ago, the firm has been increasing its assets under management by about 35% per year, Parker said. Now standing at about $31 billion, its AUM has more than doubled since the end of 2021.
Such widespread growth was not originally on the radar of EP Wealth founders, Derek Holman and Brian Parker – who has no relation to Ryan Parker. But as the Los Angeles firm began gaining more traction, it made sense to expand.
“When you talk to clients, they like that boutique feel; they like that knowledge and relationship they have with a smaller firm,” Brian Parker previously told the Business Journal. “…But as clients are asking for more services, you need a more robust offering which leads to a larger firm. Our thought all along has been, ‘Can it feel small but be large?’”
Even with such growth, California remains EP’s strongest geographic foothold. Ryan Parker maintains that its Los Angeles beginnings still hold significance as the firm continues to scale.
“We can continue to build this nationwide firm and be boutique out in other parts of the country, but that doesn’t mean we need to abandon our roots and not be boutique still in the L.A. County area,” Ryan Parker said, “So there’s that balancing act of keeping the train on the tracks, but also not forgetting where you came from.”
