{"id":625553,"date":"2026-10-09T16:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T16:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625553\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T16:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T16:46:15","slug":"ria-edge-100-pathstones-unique-growth-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625553\/","title":{"rendered":"RIA Edge 100: Pathstone\u2019s Unique Growth Engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pathstone, a multi-family office based in Englewood, N.J., has grown from about $1.4 billion in client assets to $200 billion in the past 16 years. A good deal of that was through acquisition. But another, more creative factor is getting client referrals through community activities ranging from fly-fishing trips to backcountry ski outings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur clients can go to the Super Bowl on their own,\u201d co-founder and CEO Matthew Fleissig said in a recent interview. \u201cBut can I gather three snowcats of centimillionaire families to have an experience, and bond and connect? In an AI-commoditized world, information\u2019s been commoditized. Relationships are real.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that Pathstone\u2019s rapid growth, which helped land it on this year\u2019s RIA Edge 100<\/a> list, has been partly fueled by acquisitions. This June, it added a Philadelphia-area<\/a> RIA with $12 billion in client assets, and back in 2024, it made a big leap with the addition of a $45 billion bi-coastal RIA<\/a>, Hall Capital Partners.<\/p>\n

Related:Advisor Sentiment Index: Market Optimism Slides Downward<\/a><\/p>\n

Even so, Fleissig said referrals between upper high-net-worth clients have kept its organic growth flywheel humming, with a light bulb going off a few years ago when a client said to him: \u201cI bet you have other cool families. Can I meet them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI admit, I hadn\u2019t seen that coming,\u201d Fleissig said. \u201cIt was a total blind spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pathstone, which likes to bring its services in-house, responded by acquiring a Colorado firm specializing in client events. It now offers everything from whitewater rafting trips to closed-door meetups with U.S. senators, and will host a total of 77 events in 2026, according to Fleissig.<\/p>\n

Patience Peterson, marketing executive and brand strategist at Pathstone, said one of the firm\u2019s tricks is to gather ideas from its client base rather than simply booking them as \u201ccalendar moments\u201d to be backfilled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 100% comes from listening to our clients over many, many years and deciding what to do based on that feedback,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cThey may have an idea of having an experience with a certain chef or restaurant, and we then take that and orchestrate it in a thoughtful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outdoor activities have been particularly successful as they promote open conversation and sharing that might not happen in a \u201cconference room at the Four Seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have your endorphins going, and you\u2019re with a good group of people, the conversation can go in a million different directions,\u201d Peterson said.<\/p>\n

For the firm, those experiences lead clients to invite friends, family members or other professional contacts to future gatherings. In addition, it continues a decades-long practice of hosting more formal conferences focused on wealth and investment topics. Across all the engagements, a key is having like-minded UHNW clients who can share concerns and challenges with peers in a safe environment.<\/p>\n

Related:RIA Edge Podcast: How Mission Wealth Scales Without Sacrificing Client Experience with Matt Adams<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to say that we\u2019re all in the same seat here, even though maybe everyone\u2019s story is a little different, brings a huge, huge value,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

From myCFO to Multi-Family Office<\/p>\n

Pathstone\u2019s origins trace back to myCFO, a dot-com-era venture started by Netscape founder Jim Clark that sought to create a \u201cdot-com family office.\u201d After the tech bubble burst, Harris Bank and Bank of Montreal bought the remnants and hired Steve Braverman (who would become Fleissig\u2019s co-founder) to rebuild it. When the 2008 financial crisis hit and the bank asked them to fire 20% of their team, Fleissig, Braverman and co-founder Alan Zachariah decided to buy the East Coast practice instead. In February 2010, Pathstone officially launched with 19 employees, 19 families and $1.4 billion in assets.<\/p>\n

Fleissig attributes the firm\u2019s initial competitive advantage to being an early mover in offering clients an \u201cunbundled\u201d service model\u2014offering everything from tax preparation and bill pay to property management alongside traditional wealth management.<\/p>\n

Related:Advisor Sentiment Index: Advisor Attitudes on Markets, Economy Hold Steady<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our founding families thought they had their investments figured out, but really needed help with accounting, tax, bill pay, planes, pilots<\/a>, cars, real estate management, payroll for household staff\u2014you name it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s comprehensive approach proved explosive. Within four years, assets had grown to $4 billion across 35 families and 35 employees.<\/p>\n

Liz Nesvold, the famed M&A expert now with Emigrant Partners, told Fleissig the firm had reached \u201cterminal velocity\u201d and should raise external capital to acquire a firm that would add leadership and resources, such as an investment research department.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Pathstone sold a minority stake to Fiduciary Network, and soon after added Boston-based Federal Street Advisors<\/a>. Since then, Fleissig said the firm has been \u201coff to the races,\u201d including multiple rounds of private equity funding that have given Lovell Minnick and Kelso & Company minority stakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The CEO bristles at the idea that such PE backing \u201csteals your soul,\u201d noting that before the firm had outside investment, it wasn\u2019t as professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a CFO; we didn\u2019t have a chief people officer,\u201d he said. \u201cYou ran the business at the end of the year, saw what was in the bank account, and sent it out to shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spreading the Wealth<\/p>\n

In addition, each private equity transaction has helped the firm expand employee ownership through management incentive unit programs\u2014profit-interest structures that give employees equity upside without diluting current shareholders.<\/p>\n

According to Fleissig, Pathstone has created 150 millionaires among its nearly 1,000 employees through the equity-sharing program, including 41 new shareholders in 2026.<\/p>\n

The firm appears likely to continue seeking stakeholder swaps every three to five years, with Fleissig noting that such moves provide liquidity windows that allow retiring partners to sell at market prices without forcing the firm to rely on internal valuations or loans. For example, co-founder Alan Zachariah used an equity window to exit in 2021, making way for Kelly Maregni\u2014who had joined via the Federal Street acquisition\u2014to become president.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the acquisitions will continue with an eye toward expanding services, such as when it brought on two trust companies and a direct indexing firm <\/a>that has grown from $4 billion to $16 billion in assets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to be differentiated,\u201d Fleissig said, noting that the firm has expanded from six service pages at launch to 16 today.<\/p>\n

Fleissig said the firm has considered up to 55 deals to date this year, with a particular interest in firms offering travel services, health and wellness, and cybersecurity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this world of commoditization with AI, how do we stand out?\u201d he asked. \u201cIf you\u2019re just doing investments, you\u2019re pretty much not growing anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pathstone, a multi-family office based in Englewood, N.J., has grown from about $1.4 billion in client assets to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":["post-625553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}