The RIA space has seen continued action and expansion over the past several years. But that’s only the beginning, according to Paul Saganey, CEO and founder of Integrated Partners.
“We’re thinking big. The next five to 10 years will be the most exciting five to 10 years of my career,” he tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview.
Saganey is a 2024 ThinkAdvisor Luminaries awards finalist for Executive of the Year, and his firm is a finalist in Thought Leadership and Education.
Among Saganey’s plans is adding 300 accounting firms to its current 200 in Integrated’s CPA Alliance program, which partners the RIA’s advisors with CPAs, who provide them access to high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Integrated, which Saganey opened in 1996 and now manages $20 billion in assets, plans to acquire additional practices next year. Its 2023 purchase of Laurel Wealth Advisors was the firm’s first acquisition.
In the interview with Saganey, who coaches and trains Integrated financial advisors to work with their wealthiest clients, he notes that the favorite part of the CEO’s job is serving as an advisor himself. “I’m an advisor, and I always have been. I love it,” Saganey says.
Here are highlights of our conversation:
THINKADVISOR: What drives your firm’s growth?
PAUL SAGANEY: We have a process: “Let’s imagine a future that’s more exciting than our past.” That’s what we push ourselves to do.
Integrated Partners’ growth has been organic. But last year you acquired Laurel Wealth Advisors, with more than $2.25 billion in assets under management. Are you planning to make more acquisitions in the near term?
Yes. We’ll be very selective, but probably there’ll be a lot of activity next year with transactions announced.
[Acquisitions] are one of the trends in the [RIA] industry, so we want to be sure we’re right there in the middle of it.
What’s the future of RIAs in general?
Amazingly exciting. We’re thinking big. The next five to 10 years will be the most exciting five to 10 years of my career.
How does The Integrated CPA Alliance work?
Accounting firms give our advisors access to the type of wealthy clients they typically can’t find on their own, and they share in the revenue.
The advisors help build out financial services divisions within the accounting practices.
We have 200 accounting firms in the program. We’re looking to grow to 500.
What else is in it for your advisors?
We help them become more impactful and effective working with those high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients. They lean on us heavily to help them up their game.
How do you do that?
With study groups, training and even role playing so that they’ll be much more effective when they get those large opportunities from the accounting firms.
We help them communicate their good ideas in a way that [influences] the client to take action.
We teach them how to make very complex thoughts and ideas easier to understand and how to present those to the client.
Are UHNW clients demanding? Do they think they know it all about investing?
