Vistria's Curi stake buys a deal machine

Curi Capital has agreed to a majority investment from The Vistria Group, the firms announced Tuesday, giving the Chicago RIA its second major ownership change in under three years; the deal, expected to close in late September, is the latest evidence that consolidation among mid-sized RIAs runs on financing as much as strategy.

Vistria, a middle-market private equity firm with $18 billion in assets under management, will take the majority position through one of its investment vehicles. It joins Curi's employee owners and existing shareholders, which include the healthcare advisory firm Curi and Wealth Partners Capital Group. Curi Capital CEO Dimitri Eliopoulos told InvestmentNews the Vistria deal will not change WPCG's position in the firm.

The WPCG connection is the detail worth pausing on. WPCG also holds interests in MAI Capital Management, Waverly Advisors, MCF Advisors, and Crewe Advisors. As this publication reported last week, Carlyle-backed MAI has been shifting from scale-building to market-by-market buying, entering Atlanta and deepening California.

WPCG is expected to keep a leadership role sourcing Curi's future acquisitions, drawing on the same deal-sourcing network that fed MAI's expansion. Announced purchases have edged past advisor moves over the past 30 days, and Curi is a good example of why: the ownership changes while the sourcing machine stays put.

That division of labor — Vistria with the capital, WPCG with the pipeline, Curi with the healthcare relationships — is the structure that matters, and the money goes to four priorities: upgrading technology platforms, recruiting and training advisers, expanding client-service offerings, and acquiring "like-minded" RIAs in existing and new markets. The first three are standard PE talking points. The fourth is the actual strategy.

The current consolidation wave is a financing story wearing a strategy costume, and Curi Capital fits the uniform: the press release leads with growth, the structure leads with leverage, and a majority stake for Vistria, with WPCG still at the table, reads less like an exit and more like a recapitalization that lets the firm keep doing what it was already doing — only with a bigger checkbook.

"Our focus is on identifying firms that share our values and client-first focus, and that bring employee talent, innovation, and expertise to make our combined firm stronger," Eliopoulos said. He also said the firm expects to grow in client advisory, investment management, and investment operations, and to expand into estate planning and tax preparation — the very service lines that make an RIA more valuable to its next owner.

This is the second time in less than three years that Curi Capital's ownership has changed in a major way, according to InvestmentNews, though the earlier transaction is not detailed in the announcement or the coverage. The sequence suggests a firm being seasoned for continued consolidation rather than for a single exit.

For a firm that has been through one ownership change and is about to go through another, the promise that clients will continue working with their existing teams under the current name and service model is the right thing to say and the hardest to guarantee. A majority stake does not change the client experience; the balance sheet changes first, then the acquisition targets, and the client experience follows.

The $14 billion figure is assets under advisement, not assets under management, a distinction announcement coverage tends to blur: AUA counts assets the firm advises on, a broader measure than the assets it actually manages. It is a real number, but a buyer would reach for a narrower underwriting metric. Vistria's own $18 billion AUM is a different metric entirely; comparing the two would be comparing the firm to its new owner.

Vistria is not new to wealth. It took a stake in the Mather Group in 2022, a deal InvestmentNews reports marked its first partnership in the wealth space, and its broader portfolio spans retirement services, employee benefits, and insurance. That breadth is a plausible fit for Curi's stated ambitions in estate planning and tax preparation, both natural extensions of an advice business and crossover points for a financial-services holding company.

Curi Capital's roots trace to 2005 with the founding of RMB Capital in Chicago, and the Curi Capital brand itself emerged separately in 2019. The current deal is expected to close in late September, and when it does, Curi Capital will have its second ownership change in three years, a deal-sourcing partner still at the table, and a checkbook earmarked for acquisitions. The press release frames the capital as fuel for technology, talent, and client service; the structure says something more specific: this is a consolidation vehicle being refueled for another round of buying. The next acquisition Curi announces will be the evidence.