Creative Planning Adds Syracuse Adviser Rockbridge and $2.2 Billion in Assets

Creative Planning’s purchase of Rockbridge Investment Management adds about $2.2 billion in assets under management and a 23-person Syracuse advisory team to a business that has expanded well beyond traditional wealth management. The deal also puts a long-established fee-only firm inside a broader platform offering tax, legal, trust and retirement plan services.

Rockbridge’s clients are expected to keep working with their current advisors. The change is in the range of services those relationships can draw on: the combined platform includes affiliated tax preparation, legal, trust and retirement plan capabilities. That may matter to clients looking to coordinate investment decisions with estate planning, taxes or business succession, although the source does not describe changes to fees or service arrangements.

Local relationships meet a broader service platform

Founded in 1991, Rockbridge provides retirement and financial planning, investment management, estate and insurance planning, business succession planning and tax coordination. Its 23 employees are joining Overland Park, Kansas-based Creative Planning, which reported more than $780 billion in assets under management or advisement as of June 30, 2026.

That headline figure covers assets under management or advisement, a broader measure than regulatory assets under management. The latter stood at roughly $296 billion in a July 2026 filing, according to AdvizorPro data. The two amounts describe different scopes, so they should be read as separate measures of the firm’s scale rather than interchangeable totals.

Rockbridge CEO Patrick Rohe and Managing Partner David Carroll said clients had been asking for coordinated services such as estate planning and tax preparation. They described the expanded offering as a way to bring dedicated certified public accountants and estate planning professionals to clients and the Syracuse community, while maintaining Rockbridge’s focus on responsiveness and client experience.

Creative Planning President and CEO Peter Mallouk said Rockbridge had built its Central New York reputation through detailed planning and client service, values he said aligned with the firm’s approach. Those comments frame the transaction as an effort to pair local advisor relationships with a larger menu of services. The practical test will be how those resources are made available to clients and how the Rockbridge team’s existing service model carries through the integration.

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A widening mix of businesses

Rockbridge is one piece of a growth strategy spanning advice, institutional consulting, insurance and international wealth management. In September, Creative Planning agreed to buy Portland-based RVK, an institutional investment consultant advising on approximately $4.3 trillion in client assets. That transaction is expected to close in January 2027. In July, the firm added Kansas City commercial insurance brokerage Lovell Insurance Group.

Earlier this year, Creative Planning expanded overseas with Swiss firm Baseline Wealth Management and London-based Maseco, which manages more than $5 billion. It also added Seattle’s Duncan & Haley, with about $660 million in assets. In 2025, the firm bought retirement plan consultant SageView Advisory Group. Together, these moves point to a platform that serves individual wealth clients as well as institutional and workplace retirement markets.

The scale of that expansion is striking against the firm’s earlier size. Creative Planning managed $50 billion when private equity firm General Atlantic took a minority stake in February 2020. Its reported assets under management or advisement have since grown to more than $780 billion as of June 30, 2026. Acquisitions are part of that trajectory, though the figures supplied do not separate purchased assets from organic growth.

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Fee-only firms face a changing competitive mix

The transaction also comes amid a shift in the composition of the advisory market. A fee-only fiduciary firm receives its compensation from client fees, rather than commissions on products. Cerulli research found that these independent firms held 34% of assets among advisory businesses managing $5 billion or more at year-end 2025, down from 42% in 2020.

The number of fee-only fiduciary firms rose from 83 to 121 over the five-year period, a 7.8% compound annual growth rate. Other models expanded faster: independent advisory firms with insurance capabilities grew 37.3% a year, from seven to 36, while hybrid firms with brokerage businesses increased from 104 to 186. The figures suggest that the fee-only segment has grown in firm count while losing a portion of assets in the largest size group.

Client satisfaction offers another measure of the model’s appeal. Cerulli found that 73% of affluent investors whose advisor must always act in their best interest were satisfied and not seeking a new provider. The comparable share was 48% among investors whose advisor may recommend products that put the advisor’s interests first. Satisfaction may support client retention, but the market-share figures show that it has not prevented other business models from expanding.

David Hefty, CEO of Credent Wealth Management, which commissioned the Cerulli research, said the findings supported his view that fee-only advice was losing ground to alternatives. Rockbridge’s move may help it offer more coordinated services while retaining its existing client relationships. What remains to be seen is whether clients use the added capabilities and whether the expanded platform can preserve the service experience on which the firm built its local business.

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