Wentworth Management to Acquire World Equity Group

Wentworth Management Services LLC has announced a purchase agreement for independent broker-dealer World Equity Group, based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

The transaction, subject to approval by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, will expand Wentworth’s footprint in the Midwest and add approximately 180 financial advisors and nearly $40 million in revenue.

Wentworth, a holding company that acts as a long-term owner and operating partner for BDs and RIA firms in the independent wealth management channel, focuses on established small- to middle-market independent BDs that seek a strategic partner for support and scale for their businesses.

Not a private equity fund, Wentworth is an owner-operator corporate model that in the $16.4 trillion U.S. wealth management industry assists entrepreneurs in executing on succession planning. The firm’s strategic focus is to acquire BDs and capture economies of scale to service financial advisors in the current technology-enabled regulatory environment.

Wentworth will make additional roll-up announcements in 2019.

“My partner and I have spent the last two decades building a team to support advisors across the country,” Rich Babjak, co-founder and president of World Equity Group, who will remain at World Equity Group as a senior member of the management team and become a shareholder in Wentworth.

World Equity Group will largely remain unchanged, the report said, with its management team staying intact, and it will remain committed to being the firm “where relationships are the difference.”

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