Indianapolis-based investment firm Sheaff Brock to be acquired

Folsom, California-based Allworth Financial plans to acquire Indianapolis-based Sheaff Brock Investment Advisors LLC as part of Allworth’s plan to expand its Indianapolis presence, the firms announced Wednesday.

The firms declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close early this summer.

Established in 2001 by Dave Gilreath and Ron Brock, Sheaff Brock is an investment firm that serves high-net-worth clients and has $1.5 billion in client assets under management. Gilreath is the firm’s chief investment officer and Brock is its chief financial officer.

Gilreath and Brock said they, and all of the firm’s 26 other employees, will remain with the firm after the acquisition. The firm will continue to do business under the Sheaff Brock name, adding the tagline “powered by Allworth” to reference its new ownership.

The acquisition also includes a second financial firm, Salzinger Sheaff Brock LLC, which was launched in 2009 by Mark Salzinger, Gilreath and Brock and operates from Sheaff Brock’s office.

Gilreath and Brock said the deal made sense for Sheaff Brock because it allows the firm to remain competitive—especially in an age where financial advisory firms are offering an increasing array of financial services.

“There’s only so much we can offer at our size,” Brock said. “Allworth brings to the table just a lot of other things that we could never offer to our clients, and also some upward mobility for our employees who are kind of stagnant at this level.”

Allworth, which was founded in 1993 and originally did business as Hanson McClain Advisors, is backed by New York City-based private equity firm Lightyear Capital and the Toronto-based Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. Allworth has been on a growth tear in recent years—it has acquired 41 registered investment adviser firms since 2017, 10 of which were acquired in 2024.

Once the Sheaff Brock acquisition closes, Allworth will have just more than 550 employees nationwide.

Sheaff Brock will be Allworth’s third and largest Indianapolis acquisition to date—the firm acquired One-to-One Financial Advisors, with $417 million in assets under management, in 2023. In December, Allworth acquired WealthPoint Advisors, with $383 million in assets under management.

The Sheaff Brock acquisition is also Allworth’s second-largest acquisition to date—its largest was Dallas-based Retirement Advisors of America, which serves airline pilots and now does business as Allworth Airline Advisors. RAA had $2.9 billion in assets under management when that acquisition closed in January 2020.

Once the Sheaff Brock acquisition closes, Allworth will have a total of 50 employees in the Indianapolis market. Over the next few years, Allworth CEO John Bunch said, the goal is to double that number.

“We really believe in the Indianapolis market, and we want to continue to grow our presence in Indianapolis,” Bunch said.

Some of that growth, Bunch said, will come from additional firm acquisitions. But some of it will come from Allworth corporate employees—people who work in fields like human resources or information technology and who serve multiple Allworth locations.

The intent, Bunch said, is to build Indianapolis into Allworth’s fourth “people center,” or a city that contains both Allworth-owned financial firms and corporate employees. Allworth’s other three people centers are in Sacramento, California; Dallas; and Cincinnati.

Bunch is no stranger to Indianapolis—he began his career here 35 years ago with Charles Schwab, moving on to live in many other cities as his career progressed. He and his wife, who grew up in Indiana, moved to Indianapolis in November 2023 from London.

Bunch has known Gilreath and Brock for many years, and with the pending acquisition, he is now working from Sheaff Brock’s office.

“Ron, Dave and I have known each other for 25-plus years,” Bunch said. “This has probably been a conversation for many of those years, and it finally just made sense for all of us to bring this together.”