A 10-year-old, private equity- and venture capital-backed shop that helps advisors go independent as RIAs may soon be going public itself.

Rudy Adolf Focus Financial Partners Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Focus Financial Partners has filed for an initial public offering confidentially, report Telis Demos, Maureen Farrell, and Liz Hoffman of the Wall Street Journal. The paper, citing unnamed sources, says that Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are working with Focus on the IPO.

The IPO could put a $1-billion valuation on Focus, per the WSJ's unnamed sources, and a Focus press release from last week says that Focus has nearly $400 million in annual revenues. So, the IPO could value Focus at 2.5 times revenue.

Rudy Adolf founded Focus in 2006 and continues to serve as CEO. Focus is backed by private equity shop Centerbridge Partners and by two venture capital shops, Polaris Venture Partners and Summit Partners. (Summit also backs acquisitive alternative asset manager and mutual fund shop Salient.)

Focus specializes in both supporting independent RIAs and helping advisors go independent by creating its own RIAs. Those independent RIAs, which Focus calls "partner firms", exchange stakes in their firms for cash and stakes in Focus. Focus' website currently lists 41 Focus partner firms, including Fort Pitt Capital Group, a $1.9-billion RIA that also offers its own mutual fund. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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