MAI Capital Management has named a new leadership team following the completion of an acquisition it sealed in August for Los Angeles-based Evoke Advisors, which more than doubled MAI’s assets under management and added about 100 additional employees.
MAI said on Monday that its AUM now stands at $65 billion, as managed by its 600 employees and led by CEO and Chairman Rick Buoncore. The Cleveland-based firm also announced an expanded office of managing partners that includes former Evoke co-founder and Managing Partner David Hou.
The newly expanded team includes Hou, Jane Eagle and Jay Sanders from Evoke, as well as existing MAI leaders. Hou will serve as managing partner for an Evoke ultra-high-net-worth division, Eagle as managing partner for Evoke Operations, and Sanders as managing partner for family office and tax services across the entire RIA.
The deal marks a rare combination of two RIAs with tens of billions in AUM that were relatively close in size. In October, two RIAs merged to create a $10 billion employee-owned firm called Greenspring Advisors. MAI, however, is owned by insurance brokerage and wealth management firm Galway Holdings, with a minority investment from Wealth Partners Capital Group.
In an interview shortly after the acquisition, CEO Buoncore likened the acquisition to staying ahead in a race for scale and talent in the wealth management sector.
“If you think you’re winning the race and stop trying, somebody’s going to pass you,” he said, further noting the team of people joining from Evoke who had been at firms such as Bank of America’s Merrill and Goldman Sachs. “It’s like a nirvana for somebody like me who believes that talent wins the game and great people are necessary.”
Bouncore also said that adding Evoke would better position them to recruit from what he views as a growing segment of the RIA market—wirehouse teams seeking to transition to the “flexibility” of an RIA model.
“We didn’t really have the mechanism to attract them,” he said. “Our model is to buy a company and take out the expense of that company to run it. With our partners at Evoke now, that’s what they do. That’s what their history is, and there are a lot of people in that industry who have followed them elsewhere and want to continue to follow them.”
An MAI spokesperson said the firm has nothing further to share on advisor transitions.
Earlier this year, one of the largest known wirehouse team breakaways happened when OpenArc Corporate Advisory, overseeing about $129 billion in client assets, left Merrill with a minority investment from Dynasty Financial Partners, to be on Dynasty’s RIA platform and custody with Charles Schwab.
Other members of MAI’s new management setup include Albie MacDonald, overseeing wealth management; Joe McLean and John Zaller, heading sports and entertainment; Chief Operating Officer Jim Kacic; and Chief Investment Officer Kurty Nye.
MAI now has 34 offices in the U.S. where it works with ultra-high-net-worth individuals, families and institutions. It also has a specialty in sports and entertainment clients, which Buoncore said is an area in which Evoke fits in well with its L.A. client base.
The Evoke transaction is the RIA’s 17th acquisition since January 2024, with some of the deals adding additional capabilities. The firm now offers financial planning, investment management, retirement planning, family office services, trust services and institutional consulting.
A&O Shearman served as legal counsel to MAI, and Ardea Partners LP acted as the financial advisor for Evoke, with Ropes & Gray serving as legal counsel.
Addition reporting contributed by Senior Reporter Patrick Donachie.
