Rich Bursek on Why Organic Growth Is Outpacing M&A for Wealth Management Firms

The registered investment advisor industry spent the past decade in acquisition mode. Deal volume surged, valuations climbed, and firms raced to consolidate. But M&A has become table stakes, and a different metric now commands attention: organic growth. Cerulli Associates’ U.S. RIA Marketplace 2025 report found that industry focus is shifting toward generating net new assets from existing relationships and referrals.

Rich Bursek, President and Partner of Certuity, built his firm’s growth model around this approach before it became an industry talking point. Bursek joined Certuity in 2012 as one of the first senior hires. Under his leadership, the firm achieved significant organic growth in 2018 alone, placing it among the fastest-growing RIAs in the country that year, according to Institutional Investor.

What’s Driving the Industry-Wide Pivot?

BCG’s Global Wealth Report 2025 found that less than one-third of AUM growth over the past decade came from existing advisors. North America saw that figure drop to 22%. Most firms relied on market performance, M&A, and advisor hiring to expand. Those levers still matter, but they no longer separate winners from the pack.

“In an ever-consolidating market, the need for positive net asset flows cannot be overstated,” states Stephen Caruso, associate director at Cerulli Associates. His firm’s research found that 93% of billion-dollar RIAs rank referrals as their top organic growth method, yet most struggle to execute consistently.

BCG’s analysis reveals why this matters for valuations: net new assets explain roughly half the variation in price-to-earnings multiples across the industry.

How Did Certuity Achieve Organic Growth in 2018?

Bursek attributes the firm’s growth to disciplined execution. Rather than pursuing acquisitions, Certuity focused on deepening client relationships and earning referrals through service.

“Our growth has come from existing clients and their referrals, which is the result of a client-centric advisory and client-service team,” Bursek states. Certuity expanded AUM from approximately $500 million in 2012 to roughly $3.9 billion by early 2020.

Availability plays a central role. “We don’t turn off our clocks,” he notes, adding that advisors routinely take client calls on weekends. Such responsiveness builds trust that converts satisfied clients into referral sources.

What distinguishes this approach is the compounding effect. Each referral-generated client becomes a potential source of future referrals, creating a flywheel that acquisitions struggle to replicate.

Why Are Referral-Driven Methods Gaining Attention?

Schwab’s 2025 RIA Benchmarking Study quantifies the performance gap. Top-performing firms saw twice as much revenue growth and attracted 85% more new clients at the median than other firms. These firms share common infrastructure:

• Written plans: Documented growth objectives with accountability measures
• Ideal client personas: Clear profiles that focus marketing and service delivery
• Referral programs: Formalized processes for generating and converting referrals

Firms with documented referral plans saw 1.6 times more new clients from existing client referrals and four times more from business partner referrals.

Bursek emphasizes a relational approach that extends beyond portfolio management. “We use a holistic approach to understand our clients’ financial life. We build relationships with our clients and their family members, prospects, strategic centers of influence, and the underlying managers of private funds we’re investing in,” he observes.

What Role Does Culture Play?

Bursek views organic growth as inseparable from culture. Firms cannot deliver strong client experiences without engaged employees who are all aligned.

“A positive environment, with a clear and common purpose, drives a culture that produces focused and motivated employees, ultimately putting your business in a better position to achieve success,” he states.

Culture becomes critical during expansion. Bursek warns that geographic growth can cause damage if executed poorly. “It starts with ensuring you have the right people in place to lead the charge,” he advises.

Client referrals depend on consistent service quality across every touchpoint. One negative interaction can eliminate years of relationship-building. Firms that scale through M&A often struggle with service inconsistency as they integrate teams with different norms.

Why Does Retention Data Miss the Full Picture?

The wealth management industry maintains 97% client retention over the past decade, according to Schwab’s RIA Benchmarking Study. But this figure obscures a critical distinction: retention measures whether clients leave, not whether they consolidate assets or provide referrals. A client who stays but does not grow or refer is a retention success but a growth failure.

Cerulli’s research highlights a structural constraint: advisors allocate only 7% of their time to business development. Meanwhile, 83% of firms cite limited resources as a major challenge to organic growth.

Bursek’s model addresses this through product and service innovation that includes tax mitigation strategies, family office services, institutional-level services and access to private investments. Certuity created pooled alternative investment vehicles to give clients access to private investment opportunities. “Clients wouldn’t normally be able to access these investments on their own,” Bursek notes. The firm seeks to negotiate reduced fees and terms, providing value that strengthens retention and generates referrals simultaneously.

Who Stands to Benefit Most?

Organic growth carries urgency given the intergenerational wealth transfer underway. Cerulli estimates $124 trillion will pass to heirs or charity between 2024 and 2048. Yet SEI research shows only 30% of advisors retain clients after the primary decision-maker dies.

Firms built on acquiring assets lack the multi-generational connections needed to retain wealth across inheritance events. Schwab’s study found that forward-looking firms are responding:

• Next-generation engagement: 68% of firms actively engage with clients’ children before wealth transfer occurs.
• Family education: 72% offer educational services to build early trust with heirs.

Firms that invested in relationships years before transfers occur will capture many of the assets that others lose.

What Does the Future Hold?

BCG’s analysis found that organic growth varied sharply by region from 2014 to 2024. Wealth managers in Latin America and Asia-Pacific achieved rates of 52% and 50%, more than double their peers in North America and Europe.

These disparities suggest room for improvement among RIAs in developed markets. The structural advantages of organic growth extend beyond growth rates:

• Institutional knowledge: Firms built on referrals develop deep understanding of what clients value.
• Relationship continuity: Advisors who cultivated relationships understand family context and dynamics.
• Compounding returns: Each satisfied client becomes a potential referral source.

Firms built on acquisitions inherit relationships they did not cultivate and must reverse-engineer what made them work. Organic growth has become the metric that determines long-term viability in wealth management.

¹This ranking was based on AUM growth as compiled by Cerulli Associates in 2019, and applies to the calendar year 2018.