We buy independent RIAs from founders who built them. Then we grow them.

Kovrent is a holding company that buys control of SEC-registered RIAs, $100M to $700M in assets, from owners without a funded succession plan. Part of the price can be paid in Kovrent equity, or all cash. The name stays on the door. The team keeps its seats. Nothing in our structure forces a sale on a schedule.

We buy 100 percent. We do not take minority stakes. We buy to hold. Kovrent buys SEC-registered RIAs with $100M to $700M in assets, from owners typically 55 or older with no funded succession plan, fee-based recurring revenue, off-market preferred. Founders can take part of the price in Kovrent equity or sell for all cash. No fund life. No redemption clock. Nothing in our structure forces a sale. Kovrent is not an RIA.

KOVRENT
Who We Serve ▾
Our Approach ▾
The Firm ▾
News & Insights Start a Conversation

We buy independent RIAs from founders who built them.Then we grow them.Your name stays on the door.Built to hold.

Kovrent is a holding company that acquires SEC-registered investment advisory firms with $100M to $700M in assets under management.

Why Kovrent
Acquire Acquire
What we buy
SEC-registered RIAs with $100M to $700M in assets, from owners without a funded succession plan.
Hold Hold
Without a clock
No fund life. No redemption clock. Nothing in our structure forces a sale.
Grow Grow
After the close
Your name stays on the door. We take on compliance, billing, HR, and technology. The advice stays with the advisors.
What we buy
SEC-registered RIAs with $100M to $700M in assets, from owners without a funded succession plan.
Without a clock
No fund life. No redemption clock. Nothing in our structure forces a sale.
After the close
Your name stays on the door. We take on compliance, billing, HR, and technology. The advice stays with the advisors.
What we
Stand for
Long-term We buy 100 percent, with capital that has no clock. No minority stakes. No stated fund life, no redemption right, and no provision that forces the sale of an operating firm.
Alignment We have run RIAs ourselves. This is a long-term partnership, not a one-off transaction.
Candor The first conversation is fifteen minutes. If we're not your buyer, we say so.
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Who we serve
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The Firm

A holding company built by people who have run RIAs.

Kovrent is led by a management team that has spent decades operating, acquiring, and building advisory firms, backed by a board of advisors and the people inside the firms we hold.
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You know what we buy.
You know who we are.
The rest is a conversation.
A first conversation.
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{{ lmLinkLabel }} → That’s a firm, not a book. Want the founder questions instead? →
Faster if you leave a number. Partners call, they don’t text first.
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Buy-Box

Are We Your Buyer?

A few answers and you know where you stand. We buy SEC-registered RIAs from founders, and we would rather tell you no today than waste a quarter of your time.
See the full buy-boxFind Out If You Qualify
Start a conversation →
The Succession Gap

Most founders have no succession plan.

106,000
advisors plan to retire over the next decade.
41%
of industry assets are controlled by advisors on their way out.
1 in 4
doesn’t know what their succession plan is.
Source: Cerulli, U.S. Advisor Metrics
Wealth management M&A is on pace for roughly 500 deals in 2026. The median target holds $733M in assets, and private equity is behind about three quarters of the buyers.
Source: Echelon Partners, 2026 [CONFIRM report title and date]
Referral partners

Know a founder who’s ready?

Send a name. Nobody is contacted without their consent.
The Succession Letter

One email a week on selling, holding, and building RIAs.

From the partners, not a marketing team.
Succession / The Wealth Transfer Problem

The largest handoff in the industry's history has no receiving team.

106,000
advisors plan to retire over the next decade.
41%
of industry assets are controlled by advisors on their way out.
1 in 4
doesn't know what their succession plan is.
Source: Cerulli, U.S. Advisor Metrics
The Compounding Part
The wealth transfer isn't only happening to advisors. It's happening to their clients at the same time. Your book is aging with you, and when a client dies, the money moves to heirs who already have their own advisor, in their own city, on their own apps.
A firm with no continuity plan loses twice. It loses clients at the founder's transition, and it loses the next generation of every client family it never engaged. Both losses are priced into what a buyer will pay, years before either happens.
The founders who do well in this decade are the ones who treat the handoff as an asset to build, not an event to survive.
Find out where you stand before someone else prices it for you.
Succession / Readiness Check

Nine questions. Answer them honestly.

Nobody sees your answers. The score is for you.
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Your Score
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Want the question-by-question readout, with what to fix first? One email, no list.
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Your readout is on its way. That's the only email you'll get.
How a Deal Works

How a deal works, first call to close.

An RIA acquisition with Kovrent runs from a fifteen minute first call to close, fast and diligent. You get a real valuation range soon after sharing three years of financials, diligence follows a fixed request list, and nothing is announced until you decide who hears it first.
Six steps. Fast and diligent, first call to close.
First call, fifteen minutes. A real range, quickly, from three years of financials. Diligence runs quietly, on a request list fixed up front. Then documents, close, and Monday. We've moved faster when a founder wanted speed. We've never asked one to.
The Sequence
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Questions Founders Actually Ask
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About Kovrent

Built by both sides of the table.

Kovrent is a holding company that acquires SEC-registered independent RIAs and grows them with capital that has no fund clock. No stated fund life, no redemption right, no name coming off the door unless you decide to change it.
The whole story, below
What We Believe
The founder decides.
You built it. You should choose the buyer, the timing, and how long you stay.
Entrepreneurial to the core.
We built this firm from zero, the way you built yours. We think like owners because we are owners, and we back ideas that don't fit the template.
Innovation that earns its keep.
We adopt what makes your firm faster and sharper, modern AI included, and we skip what's just a demo.
Trustworthy because we know the work.
We know how RIA firms operate: the billing runs, the exams, the client calls, the Monday mornings. Trust here is built on fluency, not promises.
Compliant and diligent, by design.
Everything new we install lives inside a compliance and security framework built for SEC scrutiny, not around it. Diligence is how the innovation stays safe.
We take firms further.
The goal isn't to preserve your firm in amber. It's to help it reach a level it couldn't reach alone, without losing what made it yours.
If this sounds like the way you already run your firm, you'll feel at home here.
Founding Team
The people behind the promise.
Kovrent was founded by four partners who form the initial management team. Two have spent their careers inside an advisory firm, sitting with clients and answering the same succession question they now ask founders. Two have spent theirs buying companies and keeping them.
Select a partner →
Where We're Based
Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with partners in Washington, DC, New York, and Miami.
But most weeks you'll find us where our firms are: on site during a transition, across the table from a founder, or on the phone with an advisor who has a question that can't wait.
HQ
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Careers
Work measured in decades, not deal cycles.
Operations, compliance, technology, and transition people run the firms we hold every day, long after the ink dries. As the firms grow, so does the bench.
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Insights
What we tell founders when nobody is selling anything.
All Insights →
Advisors and IARs

Two situations. Two answers.

Kovrent buys RIA firms from their owners, who can take part of the price in Kovrent equity or sell for cash. Advisors who know an owner without a succession plan can introduce us. We do not recruit advisors or books.

We do not hire advisors or recruit books. We buy firms, and we give them the tools to grow.

What You Get
Owners who sell can take part of the price in Kovrent equity. That equity goes to the owner, not to a recruited book.
At a firm we buy, your role stays and the back office, tools, and marketing get better.
Looking for a new RIA to join? Not our model. We can point you to firms we hold or networks we know, with no promise attached.
An Advisor, Not an Owner?

An advisor, not an owner?

We buy firms, not books, so we're not your next move. But if your current firm's owner, or any RIA owner you know, is quietly wondering about succession, that's a conversation we're built for.

Where We Draw The Line

We buy firms, not books.

Breakaway books under $100M and wirehouse teams without a registered RIA are outside what Kovrent acquires. That is a statement about our buy-box, not about the quality of your practice, and it is the reason the advisor path here runs through the firms we already hold rather than through a purchase of your book.

If you would rather bring your clients into a firm that already has the compliance, operations and technology built, that is the door. Read more about why long-term capital changes what a seat is worth over ten years.

You bring your clients. We build the firm around you.

Contact Us
Our Careers

Careers at Kovrent

We're a small team and we intend to stay one. Kovrent is not on a fund clock, which means the work here is measured in years, not deal cycles. We hire slowly, pay for judgment, and don't staff up to look busy.
What Working Here Means
You'll spend your time with founders in their sixties making the biggest decision of their professional lives. The job is to make that decision easier, clearer, and better than it would have been without us. If you've worked in RIA operations, wealth management M&A, or you've run a firm's back office and know where the bodies are buried, we want to hear from you when a seat opens.
Don't see your role?
If you think you belong here anyway, write to us and tell us why in under 200 words. We read all of it.
careers@kovrent.com
FAQ

Straight answers, before the first call.

Kovrent is a long-term holding company that buys SEC-registered RIAs from founders and grows them: no fund term, no rebrand. The answers below cover price, process, confidentiality, and what changes for your team and clients.
The questions founders ask us most, answered the way we'd answer on the phone.
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Have a question that isn't here? Ask it directly.
Contact Us
Insights

What we tell founders when nobody is selling anything.

Plain math and plain sentences about succession. No gates, no forms, no follow-up unless you ask for one.
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Nothing here yet. It's coming.
The Owner's Curriculum
Free while we build it
A short course on selling your firm well. Educational only. No advice, no pitch.
For education only. Nothing here is investment, legal, or tax advice, and none of it is an offer to buy your firm.
The next one
One idea per email. Written for owners, not for the industry.
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Full transcript
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Related
Fifteen minutes. We ask about the firm and the timeline, you ask whatever you want, and nothing gets sent afterward unless you ask for it.
Contact us →
Insights
That piece isn't here.
All insights
Partners

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Three Models

Private equity, consolidator, or long-term holding company.

A private equity fund typically resells your firm within five to seven years. A consolidator typically retires your brand. A long-term holding company has no fund clock, which changes what happens to your name, your team, and your clients after closing.
Last updated: August 2026

All three buy RIAs. All three are the right answer for somebody. The differences that matter are the hold period, who owns the client relationship afterward, and what forces a second sale. Below is the honest version, including where we are the wrong buyer.

Side by Side
  Private equity fund Consolidator Long-term holding company
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Definitions

Private equity fund

A pool of outside capital raised with a stated life. The manager is obligated to return that capital, so every business it buys is bought with an exit in mind. That is not a criticism, it is the job. It means the question is never whether your firm gets sold again, only when and to whom.

Consolidator

A national advisory firm that acquires practices and merges them into one operating company: usually one brand, one service model, one investment platform. Done well, it gives clients depth a small firm cannot afford on its own. What you trade is the thing that made your firm distinctive.

Long-term holding company

A company that buys firms to own them, funded by capital with no return-by date. It grows slower, pays less at the top of a cycle, and depends entirely on whose money sits behind it. Ask, and we will walk you through the capital structure line by line.

What the market looked like last year

Echelon Partners counted 466 announced wealth management transactions in 2025, up 27.3% over 2024, including a record 185 deals involving firms with at least $1 billion in assets. Private equity backed buyers accounted for 56.8% of those billion-dollar deals.

Source: Echelon Partners 2025 RIA M&A Deal Report, published February 12, 2026. Figures verified August 14, 2026.

Common Questions

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The first conversation is short and confidential. If we're not your buyer, we'll say so and leave you alone.

Start the fifteen minutes
Your Team

What happens to your people.

When Kovrent acquires an RIA, the team keeps their seats, their titles, and their clients, and compensation is confirmed in writing before closing. The back office moves to us, and the next generation of advisors gets a path to ownership that no longer depends on buying out the founder.

This page is written to be forwarded. Send it to your operations lead, your next generation of advisors, and the person who has answered your phone for eighteen years. Everything below is what we would tell them ourselves.

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In the First Year

Compensation

Existing comp arrangements carry over at closing. If we ever propose a change, it is discussed with the person affected before it is decided, not announced in a memo.

Client assignments

Nobody's book gets redistributed. The advisor who has the relationship keeps the relationship, which is the only reason the clients stay.

Titles and roles

Same seats, same titles. The work that changes is back office: billing, vendor contracts, compliance filings, reporting.

The next generation

Your G2 can own equity in something that keeps growing after the founder stops working, without needing to personally finance a buyout they cannot afford.

What we will not tell you

That nothing changes. Something always changes: the software your operations team uses, who signs off on a compliance filing, who to call about a billing error. What we commit to is that the changes are scheduled with you, explained to the person doing the work, and not a surprise announced after the fact.

If you want the version without a founder in the room, tell your team to email a partner directly. We will take the call.

The first conversation is short and confidential. If we're not your buyer, we'll say so and leave you alone.

Start the fifteen minutes
Deals

Firms we hold.

Our first transactions will be listed here with the founder's name, the firm's name, and what stayed the same. Until then, read how a deal works.

How a deal works →
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What stayed the same

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Legal

Disclosures, privacy, and terms.

[COMPLIANCE COUNSEL MUST CONFIRM WORDING] Every paragraph on this page is draft language pending review. Registration status and document links are marked where facts are still needed.

Structure and registration

Kovrent Holdings, LLC is not a registered investment adviser. Advisory services are delivered by the firms Kovrent holds, each of which is separately registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and responsible for its own advisory relationships, disclosures, and filings.

State of formation: [STATE OF FORMATION NEEDED]. Ownership and control relationship between the holding company and each registered adviser: [COUNSEL LANGUAGE NEEDED].

Nature of this website

This website is informational. Nothing on it is investment advice, an offer to buy or sell any business or security, a solicitation in any jurisdiction where such an offer would be unlawful, or a guarantee of any outcome. Descriptions of how a transaction typically proceeds are general and do not describe terms available to any particular firm.

Privacy

We collect only what you send us: your name, your firm, your email address, and anything you choose to tell us. We use it to have a conversation with you and for nothing else. We do not sell it, and we do not share it outside Kovrent except with advisers bound to confidentiality on a specific transaction, or where the law requires it.

Ask us to delete your information and we will, at privacy@kovrent.com. Retention periods, analytics providers, and cookie disclosure: [PRIVACY COUNSEL INPUT NEEDED].

Terms of use

Use of this site is subject to terms currently in review. Content is provided as is, without warranty. Trademarks and copy on this site belong to their owners. Governing law, limitation of liability, and dispute resolution: [COUNSEL DRAFT NEEDED].

Form ADV and Form CRS

Each registered adviser Kovrent holds publishes its own Form ADV Part 2A and Form CRS: [DOCUMENT LINKS NEEDED PER REGISTERED FIRM]. Public filings are also available through the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure system.

Contact

Kovrent Holdings, LLC · 3432 Stony Spring Circle, Louisville, KY 40220 · succession@kovrent.com
Contact Us

Start a conversation.

No broker, no teaser, no auction. Tell us about the firm and your timeline, ask whatever you want, and nothing gets sent afterward unless you ask for it.
Two Ways to Reach Us
succession@kovrent.com
You'll hear from us within two business days.
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This goes to the four partners, not a CRM queue. You'll hear from one of them within two business days.
Received
Your note is in.
A partner replies within two business days. No list, no follow-up sequence.
What We Do With Your Information
We do not sell it. We do not add you to a list. We do not call your team. If you tell us it is the wrong season, we leave you alone.
For bankers and intermediaries: intermediaries@kovrent.com
We named the firm after the horse for a reason: an independent firm doesn't need to be tamed to be led somewhere better.
Start a conversation.
Contact Us
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The Buy-Box

A narrow buy-box, on purpose.

Kovrent acquires SEC-registered investment advisers with $100M to $700M in assets under management, fee-based recurring revenue, and a founder approaching a transition without a funded succession plan. We pass on broker-dealer books, turnarounds, and anything we would have to take apart to make work.
SEC-registered.
Federally covered investment advisers with a clean regulatory history. State-registered firms and broker-dealer books are outside the box.
$100M to $700M in AUM.
Large enough that succession is already priced into the firm, small enough that the founder still picks up the phone.
Founder-led, no successor.
The firm runs on relationships the founder built, and nobody inside can afford to buy them out. That is the problem we exist for.
Fee-based recurring revenue.
Advisory fees on standing relationships, not transaction income. We buy firms, not books.
What we pass on: turnarounds, firms built on transaction revenue, and anything we would have to take apart to make work. We would rather tell you no today than waste a quarter of your time.
The Firm / Founding Team

The partners.

Kovrent was founded by four partners who form the initial management team. Two have spent their careers inside an advisory firm, sitting with clients and answering the same succession question they now ask founders. Two have spent theirs buying companies and keeping them.
KOVRENT
Kovrent Holdings, LLC. A holding company that buys independent RIAs and grows them.
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Contact
[PHONE NUMBER] succession@kovrent.com
Bankers and intermediaries:
intermediaries@kovrent.com
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Kovrent Holdings · 3432 Stony Spring Circle, Louisville, KY 40220
Washington, DC · New York, NY · Miami, FL
This website is informational. Nothing on it is an offer to purchase any business, investment advice, or a guarantee of any outcome. Not an offer to sell securities. Kovrent Holdings, LLC is not a registered investment adviser and is not an RIA. Michael Ellison and Noah Ellison are Investment Adviser Representatives of RPS Advisory Solutions, LLC and Registered Representatives of Silver Oak Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Kovrent Holdings, LLC is not affiliated with Silver Oak Securities, Inc.
© 2026 Kovrent