Pre-close · Wealth Advisors & RIAs

Wealth Advisors & RIAs Customer Contract Assignment: An Independent Sponsor's Counsel

Securities and M&A counsel for independent sponsors managing wealth advisors and RIAs transactions, from LOI to close to the capital markets that open up afterward.

EV range $10M to $180M EV EBITDA $3M to $25M Audience Buy-side / Sponsor
The deal context

Customer Contract Assignment on wealth advisors and RIAs deals is one of those workstreams that looks routine on a checklist and decides outcomes in practice.

The typical wealth advisors and RIAs platform sits at $10M to $180M EV with EBITDA in the $3M to $25M range. The thesis runs on RIA aggregation or wealth platform roll-up. Client consent process is the longest pole. Start it the day after the LOI signs.

The moves

How Customer Contract Assignment actually gets structured.

  1. Identify contracts with anti-assignment clauses, especially in government and healthcare.

  2. Plan the customer communication sequence to protect retention.

  3. Map consent collection against the closing checklist, with material thresholds defined.

  4. Address change-of-control notifications even where consent is not required.

  5. In wealth advisors and RIAs, layer in negative consent process timed with regulators as part of the Customer Contract Assignment workstream.

The common mistake

Asking every customer for consent. You alarm customers who would have been silent.

Jason's take
"Customer assignment is a sales motion, not a legal one. Lead with operations, follow with paper."
Jason Powell · Customer Contract Assignment
Capital after close

The deal is one thing. The capital that opens up after close is another.

Capital after close is where the IRR actually gets made. The right introductions at month nine through month thirty are where this practice works as hard as it does at the LOI.

MONTH 18
Senior refi
MONTH 24
Dividend recap
MONTH 36
Growth equity
YEAR 4–5
Strategic exit
TALK TO JASON

An LOI on the desk, a wealth advisors and RIAs target, and a Customer Contract Assignment question worth a real conversation.

Twenty minutes of practitioner-grade input from a securities attorney whose first move is to read the deal, not the engagement letter.