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Financial Planning > Tax Planning

Focus Financial Says ‘Howdy, Partner’ to $800M RIA in Texas

By Janet Levaux

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This weekend’s Super Bowl festivities are over in Houston, but another party is likely to be starting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, at least for Focus Financial Partners.

The RIA rollup firm said hello to its first member from the Lone Star state on Monday: CFO4Life, a registered investment advisory firm in Coppell, Texas, with more than $800 million in assets under advisement, which joined Focus as its 44th partner firm.

Founded in 2006 as an audit and tax firm affiliated with LPL Financial, CFO4Life now operates as a wealth management firm; it has additional offices in Fort Worth, as well as in Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

According to Focus, CFO4Life ended its relationship with LPL Financial in September 2012 and established its own registered investment advisory firm due to the fact that it “felt it had outgrown LPL’s model.”

“Helping our clients to achieve their financial goals has always been our mission, and this has been the main driver of our organic growth over the last decade,” said Levi McMellian, CEO, executive director and founding partner of CFO4Life, in a statement. “We are excited to join Focus and enhance our client service offering. We believe Focus’ M&A resources and value-add services will help us get to the next stage of the business.”

McMellian started the firm with Brian Chastain, and two additional partners, Rusty Boaz and Chase Reid, joined the group later.

“We are impressed by CFO4Life’s client service model and growth trajectory. We see a true entrepreneurial team there – they have established growth and development as an essential part of the firm culture. We are excited to welcome such a strong team to the partnership,” said Rudy Adolf, CEO and founder of Focus, in a statement.

Earlier News

In January, Focus Financial Partners says it helped partner firm Benefit Financial Services Group close a deal with PacWest Financial Management, an RIA in Phoenix. The deal was BFS’ second merger since the beginning of 2016.

According to the firm’s latest regulatory filings, Southern California-based Benefit Financial had $163 million in client assets as of six months ago; PacWest has about $225 million.

Founded by Grace Lau in 1997, PacWest provides wealth management and financial planning services to approximately 200 families and individuals.

This news came on the heels of Focus’ announcement that one of its partner firms, the Colony Group, completed a merger in January with Jones Barclay Boston, a registered investment advisory firm based in Denver with about $343 million in assets.

That deal was Colony’s sixth transaction since joining the Focus partnership in 2011. The deal will “expand Colony’s practice supporting those in the professional sports and entertainment industries,” according to a press release, and allow the firm to open its first office location in the West.

Colony became part of Focus Financial in 2011. Since then, it has made five strategic transactions—adding five offices and more than doubling the number of employees.

The Colony Group— an independent, fee-only, financial advisory firm—has roughly $5.5 billion in assets and 100 employees in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Florida and Colorado.

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