Sammons Launches Criterion Wealth Platform
Sammons Financial Group has launched Criterion, a new wealth advisory holding company under which its three registered investment advisors will operate. Criterion will bring together Beacon Capital Management, NorthRock Partners and Wealthcare, marking the next phase of Sammons’ expansion beyond its traditional insurance and annuity businesses.
Criterion will have a combined $27 billion in assets under management or advisement, and the three RIAs will maintain their brands and own ADVs, while operating under the Criterion umbrella.
This is part of Sammons’ long-term plan to expand through acquisitions and invest in the firm’s technology and capabilities for advisors.
Sammons Financial entered the wealth management space in 2021 with the acquisition of Beacon Capital Management, an RIA and turnkey asset manager with more than $4 billion as of Aug. 31. The insurer followed that move with the 2023 acquisition of RIA NorthRock Partners, with more than $12.4 billion as of Sept. 30, and a 2025 deal for Wealthcare LLC, which now has more than $11 billion, as of Sept. 30.
Michael Mock, who was serving as president of Sammons Wealth Management Group, has been appointed president of Criterion. Mock said the firm’s strategy has evolved since it entered the wealth market five years ago, and that Wealthcare was the last strategic piece needed to round out the Criterion platform.
“We’ve taken the time to really think about how these three main pieces, Beacon, NorthRock and Wealthcare fit together,” he said. “We wanted to signal that within our wealth management business, we do consider them a unified whole. Another part of it for us was to really emphasize that the wealth management business is a business that we at Sammons are in on its own merits. We want to be in the advisory channel. We want to be providing platforms that benefit advisors and their clients.”
Sammons also wanted to make it clear that its wealth management business wasn’t a distribution play for its insurance products, Mock said.
The firm hired an outside marketing consulting firm to come up with the Criterion name, which represents setting the standard for supporting advisors.
Criterion does expect to centralize some functions across the three entities, starting with finance, accounting, capital management, and deal functions. Mock said they expect to centralize other functions over the next couple of years, including human resources, compliance, legal, and investments. The firm will also bring together some of the advisor support services, including insurance advice, tax and estate planning.
Mock said the firm also plans to consolidate some of the tech stack across the three, starting with cybersecurity, data privacy and risk management. Down the line, they will also look to consolidate email functionality, trading and portfolio management systems.
Criterion expects to get more aggressive with mergers and acquisitions as it goes to market with one brand and one deal team, while offering advisors flexibility in how they want to structure a deal. But Criterion doesn’t expect to acquire a fourth RIA.
“We’re going to focus on growing through roll-ups and tuck-ins,” Mock said. “Between the three of them, they cover a really broad spectrum of the wealth management industry.… Right now, between NorthRock and Wealthcare alone, we can probably meet 75 to 80% of the market in terms of advisors or advisory firms that are looking to make some kind of a move. And that’s giving us more than enough deal volume to grow the business at the pace we want to grow.”
After being acquired by Sammons, NorthRock has made several acquisitions, building its AUM to over $12 billion as of this April. The Minneapolis-based RIA offers clients what it calls its Personal Office specialists, who offer wealth services across investments, tax, estate planning, insurance, legal, business services and philanthropy.
Wealthcare, a hybrid RIA based in West Chester, Pa., has also been adding advisors and AUM since moving from private equity ownership to Sammons. CEO Matt Regan told Wealth Management shortly after the move that he expected the new owner to further advisor additions across Wealthcare’s affiliation options, including 1099 and W-2 options.
This follows news in August that Sammons’ President Rob TeKolste will become CEO and Chairman of the Board on Jan. 1, 2027. Esfand Dinshaw, current CEO and chair, steps down after 16 years in the job and 27 years at West Des Moines, Iowa-based Sammons.
