Integrated Partners said Monday it entered the M&A arena with the acquisition of Laurel Wealth Advisors, a San Diego-area RIA whose 32 advisors manage over $2.25 billion in assets.
Laurel, an independent advisory firm that specializes in holistic planning, was started in 2011 by Lee Tripodi and Mark Welsh.
After serving as a branch manager for Smith Barney from 1991-2005, Tripodi went on to serve as senior vice president, executive director and complex manager at UBS before co-founding Laurel, according to his LinkedIn account.
Welsh was an advisor for UBS from 1998-2004, according to his report on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website. He was with two other firms before co-founding Laurel in 2011.
Tripodi and Welsh "saw an opportunity to build an advisory firm that fosters core tenets of transparency and trust," according to Integrated Partners. After recruiting 30 advisors, Laurel "recently started exploring paths to achieve continued scale," Integrated Partners said.
Financial terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed. The deal was reached "after significant due diligence by both parties," said Waltham, Massachusetts-based Integrated Partners, which increased its assets under advisement from about $8 billion in 2019 to $15 billion as of Monday. Integrated now has 200 advisors, 165 CPAs and 60 regional offices across the U.S., it said.
While this was the first acquisition for Integrated Partners, more are planned, according to Rob Sandrew, its chief growth officer, who added the deal closed in late November and "expands the Integrated footprint" in the California market.
