Corient adds New York's Seven Bridges Advisors as multi-family office roll-up continues

Corient has agreed to acquire Seven Bridges Advisors, a New York multi-family office with about $4.9 billion under management, the firm said on 28 July. It is the latest in a long run of deals that has turned the Miami-based business into what it calls the world’s largest multi-family office and non-bank wealth manager.

Seven Bridges was founded by Larry Cohen and works with entrepreneurs, company founders, financial services executives and ultra-high-net-worth families. The firm has built a practice around private markets investing, an area many wealthy families have pushed into over the past decade. Its principals will become partners of Corient once the deal closes.

“Larry and his team have built a sophisticated practice serving wealthy clients with complex needs,” said Kurt MacAlpine, Corient’s founding partner and chief executive. Cohen said the firm was drawn to Corient’s partnership structure, which he described as giving every client access to the wider firm rather than a single adviser.

The acquisition fits a pattern. Corient was established in 2020 and now counts more than 300 partners and over 2,700 employees, with roughly $535 billion in client assets as of 30 June. Much of that scale has come through purchases. In May it completed its acquisitions of Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital, taking global assets past $500 billion. In June it added Letus Private Office in France, and earlier this year it bought Capital Advisors, a Tulsa wealth manager with $7.8 billion in client assets.

Houlihan Lokey acted as exclusive financial adviser to Seven Bridges, with Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg as legal adviser.

For families and their advisers, the deal is worth watching for what it says about the market rather than the numbers alone. Independent multi-family offices have long sold themselves on being small, owner-run and unconflicted. A firm the size of Corient tests whether that promise survives at scale, or whether the economics of the sector now favour consolidators who can spread the cost of technology, compliance and investment research across a much larger base.

That question matters to anyone choosing an adviser. A larger platform can offer deeper resources and access to private markets that a boutique may struggle to match. It can also mean more layers, more turnover among the people a family actually deals with, and a firm whose owners answer to outside capital. Corient’s partnership model is its answer to the second concern, though families will judge it over time rather than on a press release.

Whether the current pace of dealmaking continues is a separate question. Roll-ups in wealth management have a mixed record, and integrating a dozen firms with their own cultures and client relationships is harder than signing the agreements. For now, Seven Bridges gives Corient more ground in New York and another set of relationships with the sort of clients the sector is fighting over.