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Sowell Management, a registered investment advisor based in North Little Rock, Ark., with more than $6.5 billion in assets under management, has sold a minority stake to Merchant, the New York-based private partnership that provides growth capital and other support to independent financial services firms.
Merchant’s investment will fund Sowell’s new Advisor Partnership Program, which allows the RIA’s advisors to participate in equity ownership and receive growth capital. The program will be available to both new and existing advisors.
“As we considered the next chapter of our growth, we wanted to demonstrate our appreciation for our advisors’ loyalty and their dedication to serving clients with distinction, while giving them additional incentive to support the ongoing success of the firm,” Sowell Management CEO Daryl Seaton said in a statement. “We created our Advisor Partnership Program to ensure it reflected the values and culture that have made Sowell a unique presence in the RIA space for the past 25 years. We have always treated our advisors as partners in the business, and our new program enables us to formalize that approach.”
Sowell Management has grown over the years to include more than 50 advisor partner firms. It is majority-owned by Bill Sowell and his wife, Cindy, who is the firm’s executive vice president. The Merchant stake is the first time Sowell has sold equity in the firm to an outside entity.
Sowell handed over the CEO role to Seaton in January as part of what the firm called a long-term succession plan. Seaton had been with the firm since 2020 as chief operating officer and was made president in 2023.
“Scale has become increasingly critical for sustained success in wealth management, and it will become more so as the industry continues to consolidate,” Sowell said in a statement. “After a thorough due diligence process, we invited Merchant to be the partner who will take us into the future. Merchant’s team has a deep understanding of the RIA space and respect for what we have built here at Sowell under the current leadership team.”
This follows news earlier this week that the RIA launched a new division focused on households with $5 million or more in net worth. Cache River Private Wealth aims to provide advanced planning, investment and marketing support for advisors serving clients with multi-generational wealth. Sowell said the new division will reflect a shift in client focus toward “high-net-worth plus” families seeking broader, more comprehensive services.
Last October, Sowell formed a partnership with global asset management firm Rayliant to incorporate the latter’s investment research and strategies into its OCIO platform. As part of the partnership, Rayliant founder and Chairman Jason Hsu, PhD, assumed the role of chief investment strategist at Sowell.
Also in October, Sowell partnered with Capital Connect to offer merger and acquisition services to advisors’ small business clients. The partnership gave Sowell’s more than 50 advisors on its platform the chance to offer small and medium-sized business owner clients access to Capital Connect’s M&A consulting, valuation, exit planning and commercial real estate services.