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Steward Partners said it will acquire Freedom Street Partners, an independent practice affiliated with Raymond James that has 38 financial advisors managing $3.2 billion in client assets.
Steward Partners said Freedom Street will become a new division, acquiring the practices of advisors who are looking to sell them to Steward Partners. Previously, advisors typically joined Steward Partners by either getting hired as a W-2 employee or working with the firm as 1099 contractors.
The firm said it expects to close the deal by year end. Freedom Street advisors will become equity partners and employees or affiliates of Steward Partners.
“Establishing this new division allows us to expand our business model, and we believe it will be a key component of our future growth, attracting a new segment of advisors to Steward Partners,” James Gold, CEO and co-founder of Steward Partners, said in a statement.
Hy Saporta, president and chief operating officer at Steward Partners, said the new division will enable the firm to offer more succession-planning options to advisors and wealth management firms considering a transition.
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The firm did not disclose terms of the deal.
Freedom Street’s management and staff will join Steward Partners as part of the acquisition. Founded in 2016, the firm has 17 locations in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Midwest. Before founding Freedom Street, CEO Scott Danner worked as an advisor at Edward Jones.
The deal is Steward Partners’ second acquisition. In 2021, the firm acquired Umpqua Investments, which gave it a broker-dealer and a footprint in the Pacific Northwest.
Steward Partners was founded in 2013 by former managers at large national brokerages and grew rapidly via advisor recruiting. Steward Partners began as an independent practice affiliated with
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but it has since evolved into a multicustodial RIA. The Washington, D.C.-based firm has nearly $28 billion in client assets and is ranked No. 19 on Barron’sTop RIA Firms for 2023.
Write to Andrew Welsch at andrew.welsch@barrons.com
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