Moneta Group Expands Globally With U.K. Partnership Deal
Moneta Group is going global, announcing a strategic partnership with a London-based financial planner and launching Moneta Global Wealth to serve internationally based clients.
In an interview with Wealth Management, Moneta CEO Erik Kittner lauded the partnership with Thomson Tyndall, a U.K. firm founded in 2016 that specializes in financial planning and investment management. He also said more large RIAs are seeking international business in a “natural progression” of the multi-decade growth in the space.
According to Moneta, the Thomson Tyndall partnership is built on growing client demand, particularly from U.S.-based clients living, working or retiring internationally, as well as expatriates with ties to the United States and family offices. The challenges range from intra-border tax laws and regulatory demands to currency needs and market stressors. According to Kittner, the partnership with Thomson Tyndall specifically accelerated due to Moneta’s growing number of expat clients living and working in the U.K. for years.
While Moneta made it work for a time (including having advisors fly to and from England to counsel U.K. expat clients), Kittner quickly surmised that Moneta needed a presence in the country. A partnership model quickly made the most sense, rather than registering directly with the Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates financial services firms in the United Kingdom.
“We went there because our clients were bringing us there,” he said.
Once opting for a partnership model, Kittner said Thomson Tyndall made the most sense from a cultural and style-fit perspective, mirroring Moneta’s model of boutique relationships within a firm operating at scale. Moneta advisors in the U.K. will operate under the firm’s brand, using Thomson Tyndall as a “strategic back-and-middle-office partner.”
“What we’re really getting is the expertise of a firm that’s been doing it for a long time, their regulatory oversight, training and development, and a place where our advisors have the support they need to provide to the clients they serve,” Kittner said.
Thomson Tyndall was founded in London in 2016 and works with private clients, families, charities and business owners. According to CEO Jamie Fergusson, the partnership gives the two firms a chance to provide “a genuinely integrated service that helps clients navigate both sides of the Atlantic.”
“We have long believed that internationally mobile clients are underserved by traditional financial services providers, particularly U.S. citizens living in the UK and elsewhere overseas, who often face a complex and fragmented advice landscape,” he said.
Kittner echoed that idea, noting that the U.K.’s financial advice industry is “pretty fragmented, and not necessarily institutionalized” to the same degree that the RIA industry is in the U.S, and he expects to see more well-capitalized RIAs enter that space.
Moneta’s move toward growing its international business (particularly via a London pipeline) is mirrored by recent moves by industry peers, including Creative Planning and Corient.
In March, the Overland Park, Kan.-based Creative Planning closed a deal to acquire London-based MASECO LLP, adding 123 employees and over $5 billion in managed assets.
It marked Creative Planning’s second international deal, following its January purchase of Switzerland-based Baseline Wealth Management.
Last September, the Miami-based Corient (the U.S.-based RIA arm of CI Financial) struck a deal to acquire a pair of U.K.-based wealth managers overseeing a combined $214 billion in assets: Stonehage Fleming, a Jersey-based multi-family office, and Stanhope Capital Group, which operates out of London. Earlier this year, the firm bought Bedrock Group, a $10.7 billion European wealth manager with offices in Geneva, London, Monaco and Lisbon.
When looking at the whole industry (including aggregators like Corient), Kittner noted that M&A in the industry (as well as broader growth demand) isn’t going anywhere. Still, the number of acquirers had grown “exponentially” in the past few decades.
“So you need additional deal flow just to feed the number of new participants that are participating in that M&A activity,” he said. “And then at some point, if you’re a larger U.S. firm, your targets are going to lead you outside of the U.S.”
According to Kittner, firms are no longer viewing cross-border operations as a geographic limitation that should inhibit RIAs’ continued expansion, and the progression seems all the more understandable when comparing the industry’s largest RIAs with wirehouses, which operate internationally. RIAs are now a “real competitor” in the wealth space, and far beyond the “mom-and-pop”-esque atmosphere of the industry two decades ago.
“We’re so far beyond that at this point, with firms that are approaching a trillion dollars in assets, that the natural progression for opportunities is leading them beyond the U.S.,” he said. “I think that’s just the evolution.”
