October 20, 2025
Louis Diamond Quoted
By Alec Rich
Louis Diamond, Diamond Consultants’ CEO, told Citywire the new initiative seeks to capitalize on the array of options available to exiting wirehouse teams that investment bankers don’t typically touch on.
RIA back office services platform Dynasty Financial Partners and advisor consulting business Diamond Consultants revealed a new offering on Monday aimed at large wirehouse breakaways.
Named the Breakaway Investment Banking Initiative, the partnership is directed at wirehouse teams managing $1bn or more in assets that are evaluating how to transition their business. That can include going independent and raising capital, selling to an RIA or moving to another wirehouse or W-2 affiliation model. The joint venture links Diamond Consultants with Dynasty Investment Bank, Dynasty’s buy- and sell-side advice arm.
Louis Diamond, chief executive of Diamond Consultants, told Citywire that while his firm and Dynasty have had a working relationship for the last 13 years, he and Shirl Penney, Dynasty’s chief executive, more recently began observing gaps in the marketplace when it comes to positioning wirehouse breakaways.
‘There’s a lot of really good investment bankers in the industry, but they’re doing deals for RIAs,’ Diamond said. ‘There’s a different nuance that goes with talking to, representing, and positioning large wirehouse teams.’
Penney reiterated that sentiment in a press release, stating there is a ‘growing need’ for investment banking services for large teams seeking options other than ‘taking a recruiting check from a wirehouse or accepting a buyout offer.’
As such, the Dynasty-Diamond initiative aims to run an ‘end-to-end’ process for wirehouse teams. Diamond said the program will endeavor to give teams a more objective view than traditional investment bankers, providing access to recruiting deals and independence opportunities in addition to the typical sell-side discussions around private equity firms and RIA aggregators.
Diamond said he and Dynasty are broadly looking to capitalize on the trend of wirehouse advisors moving into the RIA space, along with the ‘unprecedented’ valuations that independent businesses are now receiving.
‘It’s an amazing opportunity to take advantage of all the interest that private equity has in the industry, and give them exposure to it,’ Diamond said. ‘And it’s not that it’s going to be the right thing for every team, but I think it’s the stone that’s often left unturned and hasn’t really been vetted out yet for the biggest teams in the space.’
Dynasty and Diamond were both at the center of one of the largest wirehouse breakaway moves in recent memory. Dynasty is a minority backer of the newly formed mega-RIA OpenArc Corporate Advisors, the result of a 120-plus person breakaway team from a specialty practice group at Merrill Lynch that managed $129bn in wealth and corporate retirement assets. Diamond Consultants helped provide the team with transition consulting.
Merrill subsequently filed a lawsuit against OpenArc, Dynasty and custodian Charles Schwab for raiding; a federal judge in Georgia recently denied Merrill a temporary restraining order in the case.
Diamond said his firm and Dynasty have been ‘soft positioning’ the new breakaway initiative, with the intention of being up and running soon. He said the initiative will derive its clients from a mix of inbound and outbound inquiries, with the expectation that some may emerge from the relationships Diamond has in his typical consulting pipeline.
‘I’m looking at it as another arrow in my quiver, so when we’re engaging with long term relationships, it gives us another way to serve them,’ Diamond said. ‘It’ll just be an additive part of our typical due diligence process that we run for advisors.’
St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Dynasty is controlled by its executive leadership and minority-backed by private equity firm Abry Partners, along with Schwab. Dynasty’s network of affiliate firms includes 55 RIAs and about 500 advisors with roughly $140bn in assets under management.
