Hightower Signature Wealth Passes $50 Billion After Adding Altium Wealth

Hightower Signature Wealth has passed $50 billion in assets after adding Altium Wealth, a practice that manages more than $9 billion. The expansion puts the platform beyond the upper end of the $40 billion to $50 billion range Hightower’s leadership had set for its W-2 advisory channel by year-end. It also gives the platform greater reach in the Northeast and brings a sizable investment team into Hightower’s wider advisory network.

With Altium included, Hightower Signature Wealth has more than 175 advisors across upward of 45 locations nationwide, according to Hightower. Altium serves individuals, families and institutions from offices in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The practice was founded in 2010 and has been part of the Hightower network since 2022, when Hightower took a stake in the Purchase, New York-based firm.

The addition involves more than an increase in assets. Altium’s 10-person investment team will take on a larger role within Hightower One, working with advisors across the network on portfolio construction, complex asset transitions and ongoing investment management. Altium builds customized portfolios for clients with complicated finances, combining asset allocation and risk management with attention to taxes and costs. That work gives the team a role that reaches beyond the clients served directly by its practice.

Hightower CEO Larry Restieri said Altium brings scale, advisory experience and investment capabilities to the platform. He described the broader aim as bringing established wealth management firms together while retaining the characteristics behind their success and making their expertise available across the organization.

Altium founder and partner Jim Dowling called the move a next step in the practice’s development. He said the structure would let the firm stay focused on client relationships, investment discipline and its entrepreneurial culture while gaining resources for its team and growth.

A platform built through internal and external additions

Altium’s history with Hightower predates its move into Signature Wealth. In 2024, Hightower arranged Altium’s combination with Boston family wealth advisor Kimberly Clouse. That combination brought Altium’s assets to more than $6 billion at the time. The current addition takes the practice into a larger operating role within Hightower’s national advisory platform.

Hightower launched Signature Wealth in October last year as its first national direct-to-consumer advisory practice. Dallas-based Frontier Investment Management, then a $3.3 billion firm, was the first to join. Restieri said the model could broaden the range of registered investment advisors Hightower could acquire. Since its launch, the platform has grown through both internal conversions and outside purchases.

In March, Hightower said it expected Signature Wealth to reach $40 billion to $50 billion by the end of 2026. Recent additions have moved the platform past the top of that range ahead of the stated target period. In September, Hightower moved Boston Hill Advisors, a $1.6 billion firm, into Signature Wealth. Boston Hill had been a Hightower partner since 2023.

Later that month, Hightower agreed to bring in Sandy Cove Advisors, a Hingham, Massachusetts-based practice managing about $752 million. That was the platform’s third external purchase of the year. Last month, Signature Wealth absorbed Synergy Capital Solutions, a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, practice with about $1 billion in assets that had been a Hightower partner since 2017.

The distinction matters to the platform’s development. Internal conversions can expand the channel by changing where affiliated practices sit within the organization, while outside purchases add firms that were not previously part of Hightower. Both can increase scale, but the operating work involved depends on each practice’s structure and needs.

Deal volume points to a focus on integration

Hightower’s deal activity stood out in Echelon Partners’ latest industry tracking. The firm counted seven Hightower transactions in the third quarter, adding about $10.1 billion in assets. Only Wealth Enhancement Group, with nine deal announcements during the period, recorded more transactions.

Four of Hightower’s seven deals converted affiliated practices into the Signature Wealth channel. Echelon interpreted that pattern as evidence that large serial buyers are giving more attention to integration alongside the assembly of additional firms. For Hightower, the Altium addition illustrates that wider shift: the practice adds substantial assets and regional coverage, while its investment team is also set to support advisors across the network.

The announced figures establish the platform’s new scale, but they don’t by themselves show how the combined structure will work in practice. The next measure will be whether Signature Wealth can bring its growing roster of firms and capabilities into a shared advisory operation while preserving the client focus and investment processes that each practice brings with it.

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