F2 Strategy, a prominent wealth management tech consulting and research firm, announced on Tuesday it had acquired Oakbrook Solutions, a wealth management consulting firm that serves banks and trust companies, RIAs, single and multi-family offices, private banks, retirement plan providers, and custodians.
The acquisition was funded by private equity firm Renovus Capital, which invested in F2 for an undisclosed amount. The terms of the two deals were not disclosed.
Craig Cook, CEO at Oakbrook Solutions, will join F2’s board. Doug Fritz, founder and current F2 CEO, will remain CEO of the combined firm. Fritz told RIA Intel that the executive team under him will be a combination of members from both Oakbrook and Renovus.
After the merger, F2’s staff will have effectively quadrupled from 25 to 100 members, with a combined client base that manages more than $2.5 trillion in assets, up from F2’s previous client base AUM of $1.6 trillion.
Historically F2 has focused on providing its clients with strategic benchmarking, roadmap analysis, and vendor contract negotiation, as well as research. The merger will expand F2’s clientele to also include banks and trusts. F2 has long looked for a way to provide execution services on top of the company’s strategy consulting offering, said Fritz.
“The Oakbrook team represents a deepening of the team that I was going to have to build anyways,” Fritz said. “Oakbrook’s services will deepen our ability to serve clients.”
Over the past couple of months, the companies have already worked to bring each other’s services to their existing clients and projects, though Fritz anticipates the full integration will take about 90 days.
“The partnership with Oakbrook has given F2 many years jump on our own growth,” said Fritz. “It’s a really neat combination of phenomenal expertise around execution with strategy.”
He also anticipates a long partnership with Renovus. “A big reason we are with Renovus is that they are phenomenal at helping fast-growing firms scale to be more efficient and more valuable for their client as they grow,” Fritz said. “What we really need is not just capital to become larger. We need a partner in our growth, and they bring all that expertise to us.”
