Among the standout deals in another busy year for M&A, was Corient's purchase of two UK-based multi-family offices – Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital.

Here is an overview and summary of the wealth management and private bank corporate actions, particularly mergers and acquisitions, during 2025. In the following deals, the purchase price paid disclosed by some firms; where no price is given, the firms have typically declined to do so. Some of the terms and details are subject to revision. 

If the editors were to highlight one single deal, it would Corient’s purchase of two UK-based multi-family offices, Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital. (See the report and analysis here.) Smaller deals have been omitted for brevity. We hope this summary reminds readers of the activity and salient transactions.

The dollar conversion rates have been removed where they originally appeared next to other currency amounts because the value has shifted since the original transactions was reported. We hope readers find this information valuable: email tom.burroughes@wealthbriefing.com

January
CUBE, a provider of automated regulatory intelligence and regulatory change management, completed its purchase of the Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence and Oden businesses. 

Vontobel completed its acquisition of the client book from fellow Swiss firm IHAG Privatbank, which oversees SFr3 billion of client money.

Julius Baer agreed to sell its domestic Brazilian wealth management business to Banco BTG Pactual, for a sum of BRL615 million.

UK wealth manager Evelyn Partners agreed to sell its fund solutions business, operated by Evelyn Partners Fund Solutions Limited (EPFL), to Thesis Holdings for an undisclosed sum. The move added to the sale of its professional services arm late last year.

Brooks Macdonald, a UK wealth manager, completed its purchase of LIFT-Financial Group Limited and LIFT-Invest, both otherwise known as LIFT.

February
Canaccord Genuity Wealth (International) wrapped up its purchase of Brooks Macdonald Asset Management (International), or BMI, paying an initial £28 million sum, with a further contingent consideration of up to £22.85 million.

Dow Jones, the news and information group, bought Dragonfly Intelligence, a geopolitical and security intelligence provider, and Oxford Analytica, a provider of geopolitical intelligence advisory services. These organisations were acquired from New York-listed FiscalNote Holdings, for $40 million.  

March
Oaktree Capital Management, the US-headquartered firm, completed its purchase of Close Brothers Asset Management from its UK-listed parent, Close Brothers. The deal was for an equity value of up to £200 million. 

AlTi Global or AlTi Tiedemann Global, the global wealth manager, bought a Germany-based multi-family office. The acquired organisation – Kontora Family Office – is headquartered in Hamburg. It has about €14 billion in AuM. This is AITi’s first European-based deal since Allianz X injected capital into the wealth management firm. (Allianz X is an investment arm of Allianz SE, and Constellation Wealth Capital, an investment advisory firm specialising in investing in wealth managers.)

Swiss private bank J Safra Sarasin bought a majority (70 per cent) stake in unlisted Saxo Bank. The stake in the Danish group was previously held by Geely Financials Denmark A/S, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co, and Mandatum Group. Finland-based Mandatum, in its own statement, sold its 19.83 per cent stake in the trading platform and wealth management group for €319 million. Based on that percentage, the 70 per cent stake in total is worth slightly over €1.6 billion. 

Private equity house AnaCap agreed to buy a majority stake in Luxembourg-based Fiduciaire Jean Marc Faber. The business provides services including corporate administration, accountancy, trust, fund and payroll services.

April
Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) completed its acquisition of SG Kleinwort Hambros from Société Générale.

Indosuez Wealth Management said its entity in Switzerland had signed an agreement to purchase the capital of Banque Thaler, a Swiss banking institution recognised for its long-term expertise in wealth management. 

The intellectual property and databases of UK-based wealth management benchmarking firm Compeer were bought by a new business, BWC Benchmarking Limited. The formal completion of the acquisition was carried out by Bruce Weatherill non-executive director at Compeer. Compeer was liquidated following the sudden death of its CEO and majority shareholder, Bob Cossey, in February this year. BWC Benchmarking Limited, a company formed by Weatherill, has acquired all benchmarking services previously provided by Compeer. Weatherill, who is also chairman of ClearView Financial Media, publisher of this news service, was previously global leader of PwC’s Wealth Management practice; he is also chairman of The Wisdom Council and Alumia.

Under the new private ownership of Opera Limited, Oak Group, a fiduciary, corporate, and fund administration business, expanded with the acquisition of Amber Trust Ltd, a Bahamian fiduciary business.

IQ-EQ agreed to acquire the AMAL Group, a provider of corporate trust, agency services and loan servicing solutions with operations in Australia and New Zealand.

Nomura agreed to acquire Macquarie’s US and European public asset management business, with about $180 billion in retail and institutional client assets across equities, fixed income and multi-asset strategies. Nomura acquired the entire stock of the three companies that operate Macquarie’s US and European public asset management business for an all-cash purchase price of $1.8 billion.

Milan-headquartered Mediobanca made a €6.3 billion bid for Banca Generali, to build a major wealth management business. The voluntary exchange offer consisted of Assicurazioni Generali shares. The lender said it expected about €300 million in synergies from the transaction.

May
Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm which has more than $110 billion in assets under management, managing assets for Abu Dhabi sovereign investor ADQ and others, took a stake in Monaco-headquartered wealth management house Azura Partners.

Finastra, which provides financial software, is selling its Treasury and Capital Markets (TCM) business to funds advised by UK-based Apax Partners, the private equity house.

Suntera Global, a Jersey headquartered provider of fund, corporate and private wealth services, agreed to acquire fund administration and corporate services provider Khepri.

IQ-EQ, the global investor services group backed by European private equity house, Astorg, made the “strategic acquisition” of South Watch, a provider of services such as fund administration and tax preparation to clients in the US and Cayman Islands.

UK wealth managers Mattioli Woods and the Kingswood Group – both now owned by private equity having delisted from the stock market – said they merged, creating a new £25 billion UK wealth management group.

June
Dai-ichi Life and M&G agreed on a long-term partnership. Dai-ichi took a 15 per cent state in M&G, subject to regulatory conditions. The deal made Dai-ichi Life M&G’s largest single shareholder.

Jersey-headquartered Hawksford, a global corporate, private client, and fund services provider, completed its acquisition of the Netherlands operations of Equiom, an asset servicing and investment firm.

CFM Indosuez, the Monaco entity of Indosuez Wealth Management, acquired the wealth management clients of the BNP Paribas subsidiary in Monaco. The acquisition – the price of which was undisclosed – was expected to have a limited effect on the Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio of Crédit Agricole, the parent of Indosuez.

Shaw and Partners Financial Services, the Sydney-based subsidiary of Zurich-listed EFG International, agreed to buy a 75 per cent stake in New Zealand-based Investment Services Group (ISG) for NZ$67.5 million.

Evelyn Partners agreed to acquire Dart Capital, a boutique wealth manager based in the City of London. 

July
Evelyn Partners also completed the sale of its Fund Solutions business, operated by Evelyn Partners Fund Solutions Limited, to Thesis Holdings.

Fosun, the China-based conglomerate, completed the sale of almost all German private bank Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe Privatbank. It earned €670 million, and the consideration included a settlement based on any difference in book value. The bank had been held by Fosun’s subsidiary, Bridge Fortune Investment. 

Group Banque Richelieu, a Paris-based international wealth and asset management group, completed the acquisition of Zurich-based Kaleido Private Bank. Kaleido was rebranded as Banque Richelieu Switzerland. The deal brought the group’s total assets under management to approximately €10 billion.

SS&C Technologies bought Calastone, a global funds network and technology solutions provider to the wealth and asset management industry. The deal was valued at about £766 million. SS&C bought the firm from Carlyle Group, the private equity firm. 

Close Brothers agreed to sell its execution services and securities business, Winterflood Securities to Marex Group for about £103.9 million in cash.

Global professional services provider, JTC and Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) reached an agreement on JTC’s proposed acquisition of Kleinwort Hambros Trust Company (CI) and its subsidiaries (KHT), which are wholly owned subsidiaries of UBP.

August
Lunate, the Abu Dhabi-based investment house, invested $2 billion into hedge fund firm Brevan Howard, forming a platform to be domiciled in the Abu Dhabi Global Market.

Carlyle, the US private equity house, acquired UK wealth advisor software firm intelliflo from New York-listed Invesco for up to $200 million. The transaction included intelliflo’s US-based subsidiaries, RedBlack, a provider of software-as-a-service-based portfolio rebalancing tools, and intelliflo Portfolio, a portfolio management software solution for US registered investment advisors. The purchase price was $135 million at closing.

September 
Miami-headquartered Corient, the US wealth business which is a subsidiary of Canada’s CI Financial, acquired two large Europe-based multi-family offices/wealth managers: Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital. Acquisitions are being funded with an equity contribution and are expected to close in the first half of 2026. As part of the transaction, Caledonia Investments Plc, a UK-listed investment trust, sold its minority stake in Stonehage Fleming to Corient for about £288 million. Caledonia had a stake in the MFO since July 2019.

Gresham House, a specialist alternative asset manager with £8.7 billion, agreed to buy all of SUSI Partners, a Switzerland-headquartered specialist investment manager focused on energy transition infrastructure.

October 
Accuro, a trust and private office company, was acquired by Opera, a privately owned business whose majority owner is Pula, the family office of Stephen Lansdown, co-founder of UK-based Hargreaves Lansdown. Sealyham, the family office of Tom Scott, is also an owner of Opera.

ARC Group completed the sale of its subsidiary ARC Research to S&P Dow Jones Indices, a division of S&P Global, after receiving regulatory approvals.  

BNP Paribas finalised its acquisition of HSBC Private Bank's activities in Germany. This deal, announced on 23 September 2024, brought BNP Paribas Wealth Management’s combined assets under management to nearly €50 billion.

EFG International completed its purchase of all of Swiss private bank Cité Gestion. At the end of 2024, Cité Gestion managed around SFr7.5 billion in assets and generated about SFr6 billion in net profit for the 2024 financial year. EFG said it expected the transaction to be accretive to earnings per share by 2026. It was anticipated that the acquisition would lead to a reduction in its CET1 capital ratio of about 100 basis points. 

Lloyds Banking Group and Schroders said Lloyds took full ownership of the Schroders Personal Wealth joint venture. The JV was formed in 2019. As part of the transaction, Schroders continues to manage SPW and Scottish Widows assets as part of a multi-year investment agreement. Schroders also bought the 19.1 per cent stake in Cazenove Capital which is held by Lloyds, in exchange for its 49.9 per cent stake in the JV, which was transferred to Lloyds. Lloyds continues to refer its high net worth customers to Cazenove Capital.

Goldman Sachs agreed to buy Industry Ventures, a venture capital platform with $7 billion of assets under supervision. Goldman Sachs acquired all of Industry Ventures’ equity, obtaining a minority stake from Petershill Partners, which had had the ownership stake on behalf of funds since 2019. Goldman Sachs Asset Management was a limited partner in Industry Ventures’ funds for more than 20 years. Goldman Sachs paid $665 million in cash and equity payable at closing; and an additional contingent consideration of up to $300 million, payable in both cash and equity, based on Industry Ventures’ future performance through 2030.

Emirates NBD agreed to buy India-listed RBL Bank for about $3 billion. The investment was made via a preferential issue of up to 60 per cent. Emirates NBD made a mandatory open offer to buy up to a 26 per cent stake from the public shareholders of RBL Bank.

Turicum Private Bank, a Gibraltar-based privately owned bank and wealth management firm, took a significant stake in Hassium Asset Management, a UK-based wealth manager.

Kelso & Co, a US private equity house, invested almost C$400 million into Canada’s Wellington-Altus. Kelso acquired a 25 per cent stake in Wellington-Altus in a common equity transaction, confirming an enterprise value of C$1.5 billion-plus.

November
Indosuez Wealth Management bought all of Wealth Dynamix, the wealthtech firm, having already acquired a 70 per cent chunk of it in 2023.

IQ-EQ entered into an agreement to acquire Zenith Global, a Milan-headquartered service provider specialising in solutions for securitisation and structured finance transactions in Italy.

Team plc, a Jersey-headquartered investments group, agreed to acquire WH Ireland in a £12.7 million transaction. The agreement came after boutique wealth manager and corporate broking group Oberon’s proposed purchase of WH Ireland fell through after the latter's shareholders rejected the bid.

December
Goldman Sachs agreed to buy exchange-traded fund business, Innovator Capital Management, for a consideration of about $2 billion. The sum paid was a mix of cash and equities, dependent on achieving certain performance targets.

Amati Global Investors completed the buyout of the 49 per cent stake in Amati owned by Mattioli Woods, a position held by the wealth management firm since 2017.