The pace of mergers and acquisitions activity was "robust" among asset and wealth management firms in the second quarter, but total disclosed deal value was down 90% from the prior quarter, showed a report by PwC released Friday.
The drastic drop — to $1.2 billion from more than $12 billion — was due to the absence of "megadeals or transaction(s) exceeding $1 billion," PwC researchers said in the report, noting "that result is not out of line with expectations – the subsector only reported four megadeals during all of 2018."
There were 49 announced deals in the second quarter, 29 of which involved wealth management firms, 19 for money managers (12 for traditional firms and seven for alternative specialists) and one deal for an administrative firm.
PwC reported 45 deals for the previous quarter and 24 deals for the second quarter of 2018.
PwC singled out Goldman Sachs Group's $750 million cash acquisition of United Capital Financial Partners, a registered investment adviser, as one of the notable deals.
