CAPTRUST Buys a Boston-Area Adviser Firm That Oversees $900MM in Assets

The purchase of Patriot Pension Advisors is the mega firm’s third acquisition of 2022, with more to come before year’s end, the advisory says.

CAPTRUST Financial Advisors reported today in a statement that it has made its third acquisition of the year by purchasing Patriot Pension Advisors, which oversees $900 million in client assets.

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The two-person PPA, located in Foxborough, Massachusetts, services 401(k), 403(b) and defined benefit retirement plans under managing director Ted Burke and director of client services Michelle Marchionni. Both will stay on with CAPTRUST, according to the firms. 

“The way the industry is going, and looking at all the fiduciary risk out there, we just needed to up our game,” says Burke, of PPA. “We did a lot of analysis, we looked at a lot of groups, and when we saw the tools and the content [from CAPTRUST] that we could help our plan sponsors with, and everything available to them and to us … that’s what we were looking to get.”

CAPTRUST has been on a buying spree since 2006 to grow its retirement, wealth, and endowment and foundation advisory businesses. The firm said PPA hit three of its key notes for acquisition: talented people who plan to stay, a client base complementary to the larger firm’s own and a location where CAPTRUST is aiming to expand. 

“We’re looking for firms that will come in here and help us continue to grow,” says Rick Shoff, managing director of CAPTRUST’s advisor support group. “When we meet people like Ted and Michelle, who are students of the game, have built a successful business and are good people … that’s always the starting point for us.” 

CAPTRUST did not disclose details of the deal. A spokesperson said the purchase closed in the middle of September, adding to three other Boston-area acquisitions the firm has made since 2019—RINET, Cammack Retirement Group and Boston Advisors. Shoff says PPA will be folded into CAPTRUST. With headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, CAPTRUST bills itself as the largest retirement-focused registered investment adviser in the country. 

More M&A to Come 

Shoff says CAPTRUST currently has other acquisitions in process and will likely end 2022 in the range of its average five to 10 acquisitions a year—though the deals may not be announced publicly in this calendar year. He also says the downturn in markets is not hindering CAPTRUST’s deal-making, but instead is providing an opportunity due to the firm’s size, capital structure and M&A process.

“We’ve accelerated, not slowed down, in this [market] pullback,” Shoff says. “We feel like the best time to grow is in a down period like this. If you go back to 2008 and the Great Recession, and you look at where we were, that was the platform by which, then, we really accelerated.”

Shoff says there’s still substantial deal flow despite volatility and that, while valuations for targets have not come down, they are not accelerating as they did in recent years. A CAPTRUST spokesperson said the firm made 11 acquisitions in 2021.

Wise Rhino Group, a retirement M&A advisory firm, says the total volume of transactions through Q3 is down slightly from the same quarter in 2021 but that it anticipates a “flurry” of deals in Q4 that might push the total number for 2022 above 2021.

“We have yet to see the increased rates and volatility negatively affecting the multiples paid or slowing demand for wealth advisory or retirement consulting firms,” says Rob Madore, a director at Wise Rhino Group.

Madore says there have been some changes to how deals are being structured, as “any business where fees are tied tightly to assets under management has seen a dip in revenues versus their historical trends.”

Focus on Wealth Management 

Earlier this year, CAPTRUST acquired Frontier Wealth Management, which served both individuals and corporate retirement plans, and Reynolds Investment Management, focused on individual wealth management. 

Shoff says CAPTRUST’s acquisition targets will likely continue to be predominantly in wealth management, as the firm continues to see “huge opportunity” in that business, a focus CAPTRUST started about 10 years ago after initially targeting retirement advisories. Of CAPTRUST’s $100 billion under management, wealth management now accounts for “just south of” $40 billion, according to the spokesperson.

“The next few years, we do not anticipate the M&A landscape to diverge much from what we’ve seen historically,” says Madore. “On one end, there are still newer, well-financed entrants to the space, while the more  mature aggregators or integrators continue scaling; these firms rely on a steady stream of acquisitions to add to or maintain their torrid growth pace.”

High-Net-Worth Individuals Worry if They Will Have Enough to Retire

While millionaires are saving more compared to the average, it’s not at a great enough amount to make a significant difference.



A new study from Natixis Investment Managers examines what it means to be financially secure in retirement and if $1 million will be enough to last more than 25 years.

The report, “The million dollar question: How much do I need to retire?” surveyed 1,617 individuals who have accumulated $1 million or more in investable assets and who participated in the 2021 Natixis Global Survey of Individual Investors.

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The survey found that on the surface, most high-net-worth individuals (79%) say they will be financially secure in retirement, but deeper down they are far less confident. Millionaires were nearly as likely to say it will take a miracle to achieve a secure retirement (35%) as investors overall (40%). One key reason may be that the million-dollar mark may not be as significant as it once was, the survey adds.

“It’s not that a million dollars isn’t a lot—it’s still the qualifier for most definitions of high-net-worth individuals—it’s just that there are a lot more millionaires,” the report says. “In fact, Capgemini’s World Wealth Report shows that the number of individuals at this asset level globally has nearly doubled from 10.9 million in 2010 to 20.8 million in 2020. That report finds large numbers of millionaires in North America (6.98 million), Asia (6.9 million) and Europe (5.36 million).”

High-net-worth individuals reported that they have accumulated more than four times the median assets of the overall population ($2 million vs. $450,000)—but they are not as far ahead when it comes to retirement savings, the report says. HNWI report retirement savings of $625,000, which comes out to 2.5 times the $250,000 median retirement savings of the overall survey.

The survey also found that HNWI report saving an average of 19.4% of their income, that rate is still just under 3 percentage points higher than the overall average of 16.6%, the report says. While the numbers look good on their own, the difference between the savings of HNWI and the rest of the population surveyed “is not great enough to merit any substantial difference in sentiment,” Natixis reported.

The report found that 79% of HNWI say they will be financially secure in retirement—but they still have lingering doubts.

Employment raises several questions for HNWI, the report says. Even though they plan to retire at the relatively early age of 63, almost six in 10 (58%) say they accept the fact that they may have to work longer than they plan. The need to work beyond their planned retirement age may result from a variety of situations, including a change in finances, health issues that require extended insurance coverage, needing additional income to care for an elderly parent or support an adult child.

A late-career layoff, or stepping aside to care for family, can have just as much impact on retirement security, with 44% in the HNW group who worry they may not be able to keep working as long as they would like to, the report says. Thirty-six percent worry they may never be able to retire, while 42% are so worried they chose to not think about it altogether.

HNWI also worry about factors out of their control, such as whether or not public benefits will still play a factor into their retirement plans.

This has especially concerned the 38% of investors with more than $1 million in assets who say it will be hard to make ends meet without public benefits.

Nearly seven in 10 also see inflation as a threat, the report says. After experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years, investors are wise to recognize the impact that rising prices can have on their finances in retirement. Costs have increased for food, energy and health care, with 65% of this group worried that health care and long-term care costs will impact their financial security in retirement.

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