A Texas-based advisor with about $360 million in assets under management will join Mercer Advisors. Mark Cunningham, who founded his practice in 1997, will join Mercer from an affiliation with Raymond James.
Cunningham’s firm is located in Bellaire, Texas, and focuses on personalized financial planning for clients. Cunningham said he analyzed his succession planning options while seeking a partner, looking for a firm that would “anchor on financial planning,” and enable him to provide additional services, including estate planning, as well as “dedicated tax expertise and return preparation.” In Mercer, Cunningham said he found a match.
“Other colleagues of mine had talked with David Barton, vice chairman at Mercer Advisors, about the prospects of joining Mercer Advisors and what that might look like,” he said. “After meeting with Dave, I knew I had found the right partner in Mercer Advisors as they have been a dedicated financial planning organization since 1985, and offer in-house family office services like estate planning, tax return preparation and corporate trustee services.”
Mercer CEO Dave Welling said Cunningham’s firm would build upon an “already significant presence” for the RIA in Texas, while Barton said Cunningham “leads with financial planning as we do.”
The RIA has made a number of transactions in recent months, including the $1 billion acquisition of Goldstein Munger + Associates, a California-based firm founded in 1979 specializing in ultra-high-net-worth clients that decided to join Mercer after an introduction via DeVoe & Company (who represented Goldstein Munger in the deal).
Mercer also acquired a number of firms this fall, including The Asset Advisory Group, a Cincinnati-based RIA with about 160 clients and $370 million in AUM. Mercer also acquired Jordan Financial Strategies in September. Like Mercer, Jordan Financial is based in Denver and manages about 362 clients with approximately $120 million in managed assets.
Mercer Global Advisors was founded in 1985 and has more than $39 billion in client assets, with more than 790 employees who work in more than 80 offices scattered around the country, according to the firm. The firm continues to be one of the industry’s most prolific deal-makers, netting 13 firms with about $5.2 billion in managed assets in the first three quarters of 2022 alone.