Apella Wealth Expands West Coast Presence with Financial Connections Deal

Apella Wealth has expanded its advisory platform with the addition of Financial Connections Group, Inc., a Bay Area-based firm that provides financial planning, retirement planning and investment management to individuals and families. Founded in 1994, Financial Connections operates offices in Larkspur, Berkeley and San Francisco, California. 

Financial Connections Partners Jill Hollander, Brian Pon and Kai Bogdanovich will join Apella alongside the firm’s full team. “We decided to merge with a larger firm to expand and enhance the services we offer to our employees and clients,” said Jill Hollander, Founder of Financial Connections Group. “We identified Apella Wealth as a company with philosophies and practices closely aligned with our own, and we are pleased to join their team.” 

The transaction represents Apella’s 27th partnership overall and its 16th in collaboration with Wealth Partners Capital Group, the financial services holding company that took a strategic stake in Apella in September 2021. The deal closed on April 1, 2026, bringing Apella’s assets under management to approximately $10.5 billion. 

Apella has been building scale through targeted combinations. In January, the firm announced a partnership with Williamsburg, Virginia-based PBMares Wealth Management, following its September addition of Park Piedmont Advisors, an Illinois-based RIA overseeing roughly $1 billion in AUM.