Slate Hill Companions, a Dallas-based single-family-office-backed holding firm, has taken a minority stake in native registered funding advisor XO Wealth Administration.
Based in 2016 by Managing Director Matt Fuller, XO has $630 million in belongings underneath administration and is among the many fastest-growing RIAs in Texas. XO offers custom-made monetary planning and funding administration for entrepreneurs, company executives and different rich people.
Based on Fuller, the partnership is motivated by the altering wants of his purchasers, together with elevated curiosity within the personal fairness house and a need for extra household workplace providers. A number of present purchasers who personal companies are on the cusp of promoting and can have liquid belongings to handle.
“That is actually going to have the ability to assist us take that subsequent step when it comes to household workplace capabilities,” he stated. “And, we have already had wonderful deal stream within the personal fairness house that simply obtained an entire lot higher from our partnership with Slate Hill.”
It’s Slate Hill’s first funding within the wealth administration sector since its 2020 launch, however it could function a prelude to additional offers within the coming months and years, in keeping with Managing Accomplice Joe Valdman. The agency has spent two years investing in area of interest asset managers, constructing out a handful of change traded funds and launching an end-to-end turnkey ETF platform. Now, Valdman believes Slate Hill might be positioned to supply alternatives for middle-market wealth administration companies, like XO, in search of household workplace capabilities, entry to personal investments and progress capital.
He additionally sees the evolving wealth administration house as a lovely funding alternative for his rising agency and the unnamed household behind it. “We like this house so much,” he stated. “This was our first foray and we’re grateful that Matt and his crew needed to companion with us.”
Slate Hill plans to focus on native advisors too small to be on the radar of huge aggregators and supply them with a platform for progress. Ideally, stated Valdman, all acquired companies can be rolled up underneath the XO model, however that’s not a stipulation. Acquisitions might be tailor-made to every agency and all fashions are ostensibly on the desk.
“We do not have one purchase field,” he stated. “We do not have one mannequin; we’ll customise it to what advisors and advisory practices need.”
There can even be a give attention to Texas-based companies, however there might be exceptions. “That does not preclude us from pursuing or contemplating alternatives exterior of this state, however I feel we might prefer to have a geographical footprint,” Valdman stated.
For his half, Fuller sees a chance to develop XO right into a multi-billion-dollar agency over the subsequent 5 years however stated it’s essential to take care of agility and an “entrepreneurial tilt.”
“I feel that the business’s making a mistake,” he stated. “It appears to me that quite a lot of these bigger aggregators are turning the mannequin again towards wirehouses and I do not suppose that that is the precise strategy to go. We are able to preserve some entrepreneurial capabilities and the flexibility to maneuver rapidly and benefit from alternatives, whether or not they’re public markets or personal markets, and I feel that that is going to serve us and our purchasers and future advisors that wish to be a part of us to return into that sort of an surroundings.”