After celebrating its seventh birthday in May, Dakota Wealth Management has proven it’s anything but a sunset gig for serial entrepreneur and founder Peter Raimondi. Raimondi — the founder of both The Colony Group and Banyan Partners — has positioned Dakota as one of the preeminent forces in wealth management in Florida through a series of acquisitions, organic growth and a concentrated effort to share equity among its employees.
‘I figured we’d be a $5bn firm, on our way to $10bn if we wanted to be,’ said Raimondi, Dakota’s chief executive. ‘We are a little ahead of schedule and I would say the firm is definitely at a place today where we don’t ever need to make any other acquisitions.’
Dakota has been minority-backed by RIA investor Emigrant Partners since 2023, which doubled down on its bet with a follow-on investment a year later. Even with the institutional backing, Dakota has more than 70 shareholders out of its 79 employees, Raimondi said. That helps ensure Dakota will still be humming along even after Raimondi exits, whenever that may be. ‘They all have a stake in what’ s happening, and that wealth is being created for them as well as their clients, ’ Raimondi said of his employees. ‘We’re already at that stage where we have a fully-fledged, never-need-to-be-sold forever company.’
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The Citywire RIA 50 Growers Across America ranking is an independent listing of RIA firms produced annually starting in 2020 by Citywire magazine. It is based on publicly available reported numbers compiled by discovery data. Data compiled includes percentage growth in AUM, monetary growth in AUM, and percentage growth in employees. This award does not evaluate the quality of services provided to clients and is not indicative of the practice’s future performance. Neither the RIA firms nor their employees pay a fee to Citywire magazine in exchange for inclusion in the RIA 50 Growers Across America ranking. For full methodology and other factors taken into consideration for the ranking click here.
