Captrust chief says $1T AUM milestone is a 'surreal achievement'

It was 1997 when Captrust launched as an independent registered investment advisor. Just over a quarter of a century later and it has surpassed a major milestone of $1 trillion in assets under management as of June 30, 2024.

The firm, headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, has grown to a national operation with clients in all 50 states and offers investment and wealth management services for individuals and families, solutions to help ultra-high-net-worth individuals to simplify their finances, and investment advisory services for retirement plan sponsors, endowments, foundations, and religious entities.

Smashing through the trillion dollar mark and the firm’s overall growth is beyond the wildest dreams of Fielding Miller, co-founder, CEO, and chairman of the board.

“This milestone is a surreal achievement,” he said. “When we launched in 1997, we had 12 colleagues working out of a single location in Raleigh. Since then, we have grown to 1,600 colleagues with over 90 locations across the U.S. While we had lofty ambitions, we could have never imagined our current standing.”

The firm has added some substantial weight to its growing footprint in recent months including a $770 million AUM firm in Texas in January and a $1.1 billion AUM firm in Washington in December which completed 2023’s eight acquisitions with a total $14 billion AUM.

However, it was dealt a blow in April this year when a key driver of the firm’s M&A activity for the last decade, senior director of strategic growth Rush Benton, announced plans to move on to start his own business. Benton was involved in adding 40 firms to Captrust.

Fielding Miller is confident in the outlook for further expansion though.

“As we look forward, our opportunities are accelerating,” he said. “The RIA industry is in a great period of consolidation, and we are well positioned to continue our trajectory in the years to come, due to the tremendous work of our colleagues and the support of our vendor partners and our investment partners, GTCR and Carlyle.”