Apollon Holdings, a Mount Pleasant-based wealth management firm with approximately $9 billion in assets under management, has merged into CIC Wealth, a Maryland-based RIA with approximately $900 million in advisory and brokerage assets. The deal was not structured as an acquisition, but rather a partnership that allows CIC to use Apollo's back office services.
Apollon and CIC first met in 2018 through a joint partner, Merchant Investment Management, which owns a minority stake in both firms.
“CIC was, I think, the third or fourth investment that Merchant ever made in the partnership that they had,” said Michael Dolberg, founding partner and CEO of Apollon. “We were the next partnership after CIC. I've known them almost as long as we've been an RIA. We've been talking for a very long time, and so it was very easy for us to come together because of that.”
Dolberg also said Apollon had been looking to add an office in the Washington, DC area. CIC has offices in Rockville, Md. and Owings Mills, Md.
CIC, which is led by President Michael Fein, CEO Ryan Wibberley and CCO Frank Cappadora, has brought on board over 12 team members in total, including eight advisors. They expect to close their RIA in November.
Fein said his team decided to pursue the partnership after realizing they were good advisors but had nothing special to offer potential recruits.
“We had good systems for ourselves, and we just didn't connect well and play well,” he said.
They have joined Apollon Wealth Management, one of two Apollon RIAs. Both CIC and Apollon use PKS Investments for legacy tracking, Schwab for custody and Orion for performance reporting. Apollon Wealth also uses Fidelity, Pershing and Raymond James. It also recently added Goldman Sachs Advisor Solutions.
The firm's other RIA, Apollon Financial, is also multi-custodial, but uses LPL Financial as a broker/dealer and serves more traditional hybrid advisors. That firm uses LPL, Fidelity and Schwab for custody.
So far this year, Apollon has added seven teams and 18 new advisors. The firm now has 180 employees, including 85 consultants. It has clients in all 50 states served by 30 offices. Dolberg expects to end the year with about $10 billion in total assets.
In addition to CIC, Apollon Financial recently added Martin Beck of Granite Financial in Chicago, Fran Gutrich in Chicago and Jim McGowan in Pennsylvania. David Haggard, an advisor in Atlanta, joined Apollon Wealth. All four advisors had a net worth of $400 million.
In some cases, Apollon will buy an RIA outright, as it recently did with its acquisition of DeHollander Financial Group over the summer. The company will do this when the firm's executives are nearing retirement and are looking for a good home for their clients. With CIC, the owners have a much longer runway, so they are coming together and the firm can grow together. Apollon will also recruit new advisors at existing locations.
in may Apollo hired Ryan ShanksCEO and co-founder of FA Match, to lead its recruitment efforts as chief growth officer.
“Our model is a very healthy interdependence of what we do from a core infrastructure standpoint so that our offices have more time and capacity to go and provide Ritz-Carlton white glove service,” Dolberg said. “And they all go into a set of systems, processes, technology, which is, I think, a little different than some and a lot the same as others.”