The consultancy said with 124 transactions worldwide last year, the number of deals has risen in the past eight years but the level of assets under management (AUM) acquired through the deals has dropped on the previous year.
The study revealed that $408.5bn (£290.6bn) changed hands in 2015, compared with $461.4bn the previous year, and a significant reduction on the $780bn AUM level transferred in 2013.
The Scorpio Partnership 2016 Wealth Management Deal Tracker found that in the “pursuit of quality”, deal values rose – albeit marginally – from 2.06% to 2.14% of price-to-AUM ratio, while businesses with AUM of $5bn to $10bn commanded the best multiples.
Looking M&A across the global landscape, Swiss wealth management firms saw the largest deals, with an average AUM per acquired firm of $9.4bn.
Sebastian Dovey, managing partner at Scorpio, said: “2015 may eventually be labelled as the year the Swiss regained confidence with a select group of wealth managers choosing this year to support growth through the corporate cheque book.”
