SEI Acquires Majority Stake in Advisory Firm Stratos for $527mm

SEI, the US WealthTech platform, announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in the wealth management firm Stratos Wealth. SEI will pay approximately $527 million for a 57% stake in the firm with an option to buy the rest under certain circumstances. We confess that we did not see this one coming. But, if the large RIA aggregators can build out their own WealthTech platforms, it only seems fair that the large WealthTech platforms can buy RIAs.

The acquisition will give SEI a decent foothold in the wealth management space with 360 advisors and $37 billion in assets. We presume the next step will be to recruit new advisors to the platform by tempting them with SEI's technology, custody, and TAMP solutions. I certainly don't think we have seen the end of this story.

As an aside, the Corp Dev team at SEI has been busy. Over the two years, they have acquired LifeYield, Altigo, and National Pension Trust. They also sold their family office services business to Aquiline.

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