NorthStar Financial Agrees to Acquire FTJ FundChoice

The combined firms will support nearly $690 billion in platform assets and over 2.5 million investor accounts.

NorthStar Financial Services Group, LLC—the parent company of Orion Advisor Services, LLC, CLS Investments, LLC, and other leading financial services firms—announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire FTJ FundChoice, LLC, a national turnkey asset management firm with approximately $10 billion in assets under administration. NorthStar, a portfolio company of TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm, will acquire FTJ FundChoice from Seaport Capital, a middle market private equity firm. This acquisition highlights both companies’ shared mission to help financial advisors enhance their service to clients, increase their operational efficiencies, and expand their businesses with freedom and flexibility.

With the addition of FTJ FundChoice’s platform to its list of existing capabilities, NorthStar will be able to accelerate the development of complementary solutions for the thousands of financial firms and advisors it supports today. Among those first to benefit will be advisors using Orion, through an integration enabling access to FTJ FundChoice’s Managed Account capabilities directly within the Orion Communities platform.

“We’re thrilled to welcome FTJ FundChoice and its clients into the NorthStar family,” said Eric Clarke, CEO of Orion. “Orion has been FTJ FundChoice’s technology partner for the past decade, and we look forward to expanding our relationship to further help the advisors, firms, and enterprises FTJ FundChoice supports.”

FTJ FundChoice will continue to operate within the same structure that earned its success to date; proceed on the accelerated growth trajectory that enabled the firm to realize more than 35 percent compounded annual growth in assets under administration over the past two years; and remain focused on serving a wide range of investment advisors, while reaping the benefits of increased access to technology. In addition, Dean Cook will continue to lead FTJ FundChoice as President and CEO.

“Our affiliation with NorthStar, and its commitment to delivering best in class technology and services to its customers, only supports FTJ FundChoice’s plans for aggressive growth and innovation,” said Cook. “We have a long track record with many of NorthStar’s thousands of clients and hope to extend our growth within that user-base, while also deepening and expanding our many relationships beyond the NorthStar footprint.”

“Sophisticated financial advisors have high expectations of their technology partners,” said M. Roy Burns, a Managing Director of TA Associates. “We think the acquisition of FTJ FundChoice will accelerate NorthStar’s ability to serve advisors’ needs with a complete, fully-integrated solution, while also enhancing each firm’s efforts to grow independently. TA is pleased to support NorthStar in this acquisition.”

Seaport Capital Partner Bob Tamashunas added, “FTJ FundChoice’s incredible growth in recent years is in many ways due to not only the investment in new products but also the attentive and responsive service organization that has resonated with the company’s customer base and market.  We want to thank Dean and the entire FTJ FundChoice team and wish them the greatest success in the next exciting chapter for them and the company.”

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018 and is subject to customary closing conditions. Additional terms were not disclosed.

About FTJ FundChoice

Founded in 2001, FTJ FundChoice, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor, provides advisors access to independent asset allocation strategies and model trading functionality. FTJ FundChoice assists advisors in simplifying their business by absorbing back office tasks, such as trade reconciliation, account administration, fee billing and performance reporting, allowing the advisor to spend more time on client relationship-building activities. To learn more about FTJ FundChoice, please visit www.ftjfundchoice.com.