People & Company News, Week of September 26, 2025
- Financial advisor Mike Felton has joined the branch channel of Ameriprise Financial from Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, with $110 million in client assets. Felton, who brings more than 20 years of industry experience, is based in Charleston, SC. Felton is supported by Ameriprise’s complex director Jamie O’Brien, and Ameriprise’s regional VP Michael Rearden.
- Victor Matarranz has been tapped to serve as head of international wealth and premier banking for the Americas and Europe at HSBC. Victor will be responsible for expanding HSBC’s wealth businesses and will join the global IWPB operating committee. He will be relocating to London from Madrid and will assume his role on Oct. 1. Before joining HSBC, Matarranz previously served as the Global CEO of wealth management and insurance at Banco Santander.
- Financial advisor Kevin Carey has joined RBC Wealth Management from JP Morgan Wealth Management, where he oversaw roughly $1 billion in client assets. Carey, who brings nearly three decades of experience, will be based at RBC’s New York City branch and made the move to RBC Wealth for its client-first services and its collaborative approach.
- Josh Plattner has been appointed as partner at Belveron Partners, a real estate investment management firm. Plattner currently serves as the firm’s CIO and will continue to oversee Belveron’s investment activities. Plattner, who joined Belveron in 2020 as managing director of acquisitions, has played an instrumental role in originating, structuring, and managing the firm’s affordable housing investments.
- Wealth management executive Anshul Sharma has been tapped to serve as CIO for Savvy Wealth, a technology-based registered investment advisor and wealth management platform. Sharma will be based at Savvy Wealth’s New York City office, where he will work closely with Savvy’s leadership team and advisors across the country. In his role, Sharma will be building Savvy’s first institutional-grade CIO office to directly support the independent advisors and advisory teams at its affiliate registered investment advisor, Savvy Advisors. Sharma will play a key role in expanding access to alternatives and thematic strategies and overseeing enhancements to the firm’s investment platform, Savvy Wealth Investment Management.
- Franklin Ruben has joined Houston-based Americana Partners, a firm in the Dynasty Financial Partners network, as a private wealth advisor. Ruben, who brings more than 40 years of experience to Americana Partners, will be based in the firm’s Houston office. In his role, Ruben will broaden the product offering by focusing on municipal bond strategies and will oversee SMAs designed to provide clients with exposure to a portfolio of income-producing municipal bonds. Before joining Americana Partners, Ruben previously served as a partner at Avalon/Corient. He also held roles at American Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Invesco.
- Billy Gilchrist has joined Peachtree Group, a commercial real estate investment firm, as SVP of originations. In his role, Gilchrist will be responsible for originating commercial real estate and hotel investments across Peachtree’s platform. Prior to joining Peachtree, Gilchrist served as CFO and CIO of ARK, where he oversaw investment strategy, financial planning, and operations. He also held roles at Hotel Development & Management Group, Insight Credit Union, and BB&T.
- Financial advisor Bart Butler has joined Osaic Wealth from VALIC Financial Advisors to launch his independent firm, Rightside Financial. Butler, who oversees more than $400 million in client assets, affiliates with Signature Equity Partners, an Osaic-affiliated office of supervisory jurisdiction, which is led by Scott Ward Armstrong. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Butler launched Rightside Financial to offer his clients financial performance and long-term legacy planning.
- Eric Ferdinand has been named managing director of Piper Sandler Companies, an investment bank. Before joining Piper Sandler Companies, Ferdinand most recently held a senior role at Bayview Asset Management, where he focused on credit investment opportunities and portfolio strategies. He also held roles at UBS Investment Bank and Sandler O’Neill & Partners.
- PROS Holdings, an AI-powered SaaS pricing and selling solutions provider, has agreed to be acquired by Thoma Bravo, a software investment firm, in an all-cash transaction valued at about $1.4 billion. Per the acquisition, PROS shareholders will receive $23.25 per share in cash, and PROS will become a privately listed company and will no longer be listed or traded on the New York Stock Exchange or any public exchange. PROS will continue to be headquartered in Houston, Texas.
- King Risk Partners, an insurance brokerage, has acquired LH Griffith & Company LLC, an independent insurance agency, bolstering its footprint in the Southeast. The acquisition boosts King Risk Partners’ presence in South Carolina. LH Griffith & Company offers a broad range of coverage options, including auto, home, life, business, and transportation insurance.
- I Squared Capital, an infrastructure investment manager, has launched ISQ OpenInfra, a platform that brings institutional-quality infrastructure investments to the private wealth market. To support ISQ OpenInfra’s launch, I Squared has expanded its capabilities to private wealth professionals, who will work closely with financial advisors, private banks, and distribution partners.
- CoreWeave, an AI cloud provider, has expanded its partnership with OpenAI in a deal valued at $6.5B, bringing the total value to $22.4B. OpenAI landed an initial deal with CoreWeave in March valued at $11.9B, which was followed by a $4B expanded agreement in May.
- Blue Ocean Technologies, a fintech capital markets company, has joined Pyth Network. Through the partnership, which is going until the end of 2026, Pyth will be the only data distributor publishing overnight U.S. equity trading data on-chain from the Blue Ocean’s ATS platform. Blue Ocean Technologies will enable applications using Pyth data to trade U.S. equities 24 hours a day, five days a week.
- Cetera Financial Group and its employee-based RIA, The Retirement Planning Group, have acquired HMC Partners. Greensboro, NC-based HMC Partners serves more than 500 households across the country. As part of the acquisition, HMC Partners’ co-founders John Hardy and Gib McEachran have joined TRPG and were previously affiliated with Cetera’s Summit Financial Networks. The acquisition brings about $425 million in assets to Cetera and TRPG.
- InvestCloud, a wealthtech platform, has partnered with GROW, an investment platform operating under financial services company Singlife, has launched its adviser and client platform in Singapore. The platform will amplify GROW’s financial adviser representatives with tools to deliver “personalized” financial advice, streamlined servicing, and enhanced client engagement. Advisers will be able to streamline client servicing, deliver curated portfolio solutions, and gain access to exclusive investment products.
- Premier, a technology-driven health care company, will be acquired by an affiliate of Patient Square Capital. Per the acquisition, Premier stockholders will receive $28.25 in cash per share, representing a 23.8% premium to Premier’s 60-day volume-weighted average price as of Sept. 5. The transaction is expected to close by the first quarter of next year. Premier will become a privately listed company and will no longer be listed or traded on the New York Stock Exchange or any public exchange.
- Advisor CRM, a CRM platform for registered investment advisors, has rolled out an integrated AI-powered email assistant tool. The suite of tools will help financial advisors organize email messages, automate required follow-up tasks, and draft “personalized” responses to clients. The tool will help advisors prioritize various tasks, identifying which emails need immediate attention and which can be deferred.
- Pyth Network, an institutional market data provider, has launched Pyth Pro, a subscription service designed to provide data across cryptocurrencies, equities, fixed income, commodities, and foreign exchange. The launch of Pyth Pro marks the provider’s entry into the institutional market data industry. Pyth Pro builds on the Pyth Network’s foundation of more than 2,000 price feeds spanning multiple assets, venues, and geographies. Pyth Pro incorporates publishers and asset classes as market demand increases.
- Integral Ad Science, a media measurement and optimization platform, will be acquired by Novacap, a private equity firm, in an all-cash transaction valued at about $1.9B, prompting IAS to further grow as it continues investing in AI-backed technology. Following the acquisition, Novacap will acquire all of the outstanding shares of IAS for $10.30 per share in cash. IAS will become a privately listed company and will no longer be listed or traded on the New York Stock Exchange or any public exchange. IAS will also continue to operate under the IAS name and brand.
- Cambridge Wilkinson, an investment banking firm, has closed a “forward flow” agreement for consumer home improvement loans. The seller of those loans is an originator of consumer installment loans that finance home improvements, including windows and doors, pools and spas, and HVAC projects, the firm said.
- Investment firm Hunter Point Capital has landed a financing agreement with Willow Tree Credit Partners, a private credit alternatives firm. The financial terms of the financing deal were not disclosed. Willow Tree, founded in 2017 and led by CEO Timothy Lower and partners James Roche and Alex Dashiell, provides “flexible” capital structure solutions for sponsor-backed and non-sponsored middle market businesses. Berkshire Global Advisors acted as financial advisor, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel to Willow Tree. Latham & Watkins LLP acted as legal counsel to Hunter Point Capital.
- HighVista Strategies, an employee-owned alternative asset manager, has closed a secondary transaction to provide liquidity for investors in venture capital funds. The transaction involves seven HighVista funds with over $425 million in net asset value, which includes funds with traditional sales and hybrid continuation vehicles. This deal extends HighVista’s role in the secondary market, where the firm has utilized secondaries to generate liquidity and to identify differentiated opportunities across strategies, the firm said.
- AppZen, an AI-powered autonomous finance platform, has raised $180M in growth funding. The funding round was led by Riverwood Capital, a technology investment firm. The Series D funding allows AppZen to further integrate agentic AI at the enterprise and enable CFOs and controllers to replace over 50% of manual work and operations without additional headcount. For this transaction, JP Morgan acted as the sole placement agent to AppZen.
- Archetype, a cryptocurrency venture firm, has raised over $100M in capital commitments for the closing of its third fund, named Archetype III. Archetype, launched in 2021, supports start-up companies building “decentralized” infrastructure and applications. Fund III has gained investments from several companies, including Privy, Monad, Hut 8, Farcaster, Ritual, and Relay. The Fund gained traction from both existing and select new institutional investors, including funds of funds, pensions, academic endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices.
- New York-based Grays Peak Capital, an investment firm, has launched its second fund, named Grays Peak Private Credit II, which is a private credit vehicle that’s designed to provide strategic capital to the government and defense ecosystem in the United States. GPPC Fund II will focus on short-duration, senior secured lending to government contractors and mission-critical counterparties with an emphasis on collateral coverage, leveraging GPC’s proprietary Data Science and AI-driven analytics and real-time monitoring platform. The Fund’s success comes after securing commitments from returning investors and multiple asset managers. Grays Peak Capital plans to invest up to $500M annually in government and military middle-market companies and joint ventures.
- Touring Capital, a venture capital firm, raised $330M in the closing round of its Fund 1. The Fund focuses on AI-powered software startups that are at the early-growth stage. Since launching in September 2023, the firm has made twelve investments, and 50% of Touring Capital’s portfolio comes from former founders, the firm said.
- Tipalti, an AI-powered finance automation platform, secured $200M in growth financing from Hercules Capital, a finance and business development company. The capital will go towards Tipalti’s continued investment in artificial intelligence, product innovation, and support the firm’s global growth.
