Indianapolis-based Castle Wealth Advisors acquired by Kansas firm

Indianapolis-based Castle Wealth Advisors LLC, a 48-year-old financial planning firm, has been acquired by Overland Park, Kansas-based Creative Planning LLC.

The deal, announced Wednesday, closed April 15. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition makes Castle part of a much larger organization.

Castle, a fee-only advisory firm with $320 million in assets under management, has 12 employees at its Indianapolis office, with another six who work in the firm’s suburban Chicago office in Naperville, Illinois.

Established in 1983, Creative Planning has 34 offices around the United States, with more than $76 billion in assets under management in the U.S. and overseas.

Castle President and CEO Gary Pittsford, who founded his firm in 1973, said the deal will allow his firm to continue to grow, and give it access to a much larger pool of experts and services.

“Now, we can do anything for anybody in the financial area,” he said.

Castle has clients from Maine to Hawaii, Pittsford said, and being part of Creative Planning now means his clients have access to the larger firm’s staff of 25 attorneys that can handle their legal needs in every state. Being part of a much larger firm also gives clients access to private placements and other investment opportunities that generally aren’t available to smaller investment firms, Pittsford said.

For its part, Castle brings expertise in business valuations, business succession planning and exit planning—services that Creative Planning hadn’t previously offered, Pittsford said. Pittsford’s new role with the larger company is as director of business valuations, and the Indianapolis office will handle this work for Creative Planning clients across the U.S.

The business valuation division will retain the Castle name, Pittsford said, but the rest of the firm will transition to the Creative Planning name.

Creative Planning has been in major expansion mode in recent years and has doubled its assets under management over the past two years. It announced four acquisitions in 2019, and another eight last year. In August, Creative Planning announced its acquisition of Muncie-based Miller Financial Management, which has offices in both Muncie and Fishers.

Pittsford said he expects the Muncie and Fishers offices will be consolidated into the former Castle Wealth Advisors office in Indianapolis.

The Castle deal represents Creative Planning’s second acquisition so far this year.