Evoke Advisors is acquiring Crescent Bay Advisors, a California-based multifamily office, enhancing its ability to provide family office services to clients.
Evoke is a $25.3 billion RIA that works with very high net worth individuals and families. It was founded in 2019 by some breakaways from the First Republic. The combined firm will be based in Los Angeles, with additional offices in Orange County, Calif. and West Palm Beach, Fla.
According to Evoke co-founder and Managing Partner David Hou, the Crescent Bay Advisors deal will add a family office services team for clients.
“We are confident, based on our long history with CBA's partners, that their expertise and quality of service will integrate seamlessly with Evoke's services to support the full range of clients' financial needs and protect their legacy family,” Hou said.
CBA Founder and President Larry Abrahams will join Evoke as managing partner, along with Hou, Mark Sear, Eric Bright, Darell Krasnoff, Andrew Palmer, Alex Shahidi and Damien Bisserier.
According to Abrahams, the firm was pleased to “officially formalize” its partnership with Evoke, which began with the founding of CBA in 2009 when Hou and his partners were still associated with First Republic. CBA offers services ranging from estate planning, personal accounting, bill payment and risk management.
In 2022, Crescent received a small investment from Commercial Investment Management. The firm pledged to use Merchant's connections to expand their family office business, with Merchant Managing Partner Matt Brinker saying at the time that adding CBA's services to Merchant firms was a “win-win” for both businesses.
In June, Merchant co-founder and Managing Partner said Tim Bello WhealthManagement.com the firm was in the process of completing a recapitalization and was expected to double its balance sheet (although the partners would not sell any equity as a result). Merchant takes minority, non-controlling stakes in RIAs, partnering with about 100 firms since its inception about seven years ago.
Following the roundup, the firm's management expects to double the number of investments over the next few years. (Bello also hopes to get a solid audience in a few years.)
last month, Merchant announced a minority of non-controlling interests at Republic Capital Group, which provides investment banking assistance to wealth and asset management firms. in October, Apollon Holdings backed by Tradersa South Carolina wealth management firm with about $8.2 billion in assets under management, merged with CIC Wealth, a Maryland-based RIA with about $900 million in advisory and brokerage assets.