Wipfli Financial Advisors, the wealth management unit of Milwaukee-based Top 25 Firm Wipfli LLP, is being acquired by Creative Planning, a registered investment advisory firm based in Overland Park, Kansas.
Wipfli Financial Advisors manages $5 billion in assets on behalf of clients, while Creative will now have over $225 billion in assets under management in 50 states and 65 countries. The deal will bring 95 employees from WFA, including 18 principals, to Creative Planning, but Wipfli plans to maintain a "significant" minority ownership stake in the venture. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Wipfli ranked No. 21 on Accounting Today's 2022 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $442.6 million in annual revenue.
The deal comes as other accounting firms, such as Warren Averett, have also been receiving funding from investment firms that are buying a stake in their asset management business (
"We were able to generate some proceeds for our strategic uses, including our main strategy going forward," said Wipfli managing partner and chairman Kurt Gresens. "That was a key reason for us to enter this transaction because all that is going on in our space right now provides for a lot of competitive change. This was a strategic decision that we made to position us for our own strategy to compete in the M&A space, as well as the client aspect and the advisory aspect."
The deal includes Wipfli Financial Advisor's digital investment technology, Avid, along with its retirement plan services group. They will complement Creative Planning's recent acquisition of Lockton Retirement Services and its emerging wealth division. This is Creative's third acquisition in about two months. In June, Creative acquired Rosen Capital Management and Ferris Capital. Wipfli has also frequently merged in many other firms, most recently in February when it added two data analytics and application development companies,
Wipfli sees the investment as helping fuel not only its accounting practice, but wealth management as well.
"Many CPA firms have wealth management practices, and we looked at the wealth management industry and of course there the wealth management industry is going through consolidation," said Gresens. "Players like Creative Planning are reaching a scale that we haven't seen before, especially with the benefits that relate to technology and ultimately client service and client offerings. We looked at it as we were entering into this transaction and said, what is it going to take to properly scale the wealth management business in the way that we think it needs to achieve its full potential? We would need to invest capital for technology and for other matters as well. We needed to invest capital in our wealth management business in order to properly serve our clients and compete. The need for capital in CPA firms is growing, and the need for capital in the wealth management part of our firm is growing as well. That capital choice was also a consideration for us as we entered into what led to this transaction."
Wipfli Financial Advisors CEO Jeff Pierce will be joining Creative as part of the deal. He and Gresens began discussing the possibilities with Creative Planning CEO Peter Malouk, who sees Wipfli's footprint as helping build his advisory firm as well.
"Their presence in Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will help us better serve our clients throughout the U.S.," Mallouk said in a statement Wednesday. "From our first conversations with Jeff Pierce and the rest of the Wipfli Financial team, it was evident that this was a perfect match. Wipfli Financial shares the same core values that we instill at Creative Planning and we are excited to hit the ground running."
Wipfli sees the deal as a way to offer more investment advisory services for clients as well. "Going forward, we will be able to provide additional services to our clients to meet their needs for many years to come while investing in our team through a strong commitment to training and development," Pierce said in a statement.
The deal will also enable Wipfli to offer wealth management services in regions like New England where it has added accounting firms in recent years but hasn't yet built its financial advisory practice. The firm has 50 offices, but offers wealth management services in only about 20 of them, according to Gresens. The WFA offices will be rebranded as Creative Planning offices, but don't expect Wipfli to rebrand as Creative Accounting. Wipfli will continue to offer accounting and consulting services under its traditional brand.
"I believe in the power of partnerships," said Gresens. "We have strong relationships with Microsoft, Sage Intacct, Oracle NetSuite and Salesforce. From my perspective, this is another partnership opportunity. Creative now has a source where they can refer and send their clients to us with confidence to help solve their clients' needs as well."
