Aspen Standard Wealth, a holding company that buys wealth management platforms, has acquired a majority stake in Summitry, a San Francisco-based registered investment adviser with $2.8 billion in assets under management. This represents Aspen's first acquisition since its launch in April.

Backed by private equity firm Alpine Investors, Aspen was founded by CEO Aly Kassim-Lakha, a former investor in Advent International. Kassim-Lakha has built a team of 15 people who will support the firm's RIA partners.

“It was what I saw while at Advent that opened my eyes to some of the opportunities and pain points in the industry,” he said. “Then we decided to build Aspen to solve many of those issues.”

One of those pain points he witnessed was the lack of long-term partners for consulting firms.

“We should be a permanent home,” he said. “Other investors in the space have mandates to sell every three to five years. We have a long-term orientation, because we think it is in the best service of the client, first of all, the advisors and then the businesses in the industry.”

The firm is named after the Aspen tree, which, Kassim-Lakha says, are entirely connected underground, with intertwined roots.

“They are the oldest living organism on the planet because they are so strongly connected below what is visible,” he said. “That's the model that's pretty comparable to how we want to build the business.”

Aspen will take a majority stake in the RIAs that choose to merge, and those firms retain their brand, culture and ADVs.

“The customer has registered to be with the business. The provision of the service is local”, he said. “To change that, we felt it was inconsistent with the original promise that was made to the customer.”

The firm will handle all back-office and compliance functions so owners can focus on organic growth.

Aspen also has a dedicated team that will help wealth management firms solve some of the talent issues they may have. The firm will source talent on behalf of RIAs, whether it's operations, HR and finance. They will screen the candidates, conduct all the interviews with them and then bring them to the owners for the final decision.

They will also partner with owners to help with direct marketing and channel partnerships.

Each deal is structured differently, but most will involve some ownership in Aspen.

While the firm is targeting RIAs totaling $300 million to $10 billion, Kassim-Lakha said it's more important for the firm to be growth-minded.

“Summitry embodies everything we look for in a partner: growth-oriented, customer-obsessed and people-centric,” he said in a statement. “Aspen offers what successful and leading RIAs like Summitry have long sought: a permanent partner with deep knowledge who is there to support them endlessly. We are the much-needed alternative to traditional investment firms in that we enable our partners to thrive over the long term.”