Delafield-based CedarPoint Investment Advisors has been acquired by Effingham, Illinois-based Midland States Bancorp Inc. The transaction closed March 28 for an undisclosed price.
CedarPoint, which is a registered investment advisor, offers financial planning and investment services. It has about $180 million in assets under administration. CedarPoint will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Midland. Its employees are all being retained in the integration, and will continue operating out of the same Delafield office.
CedarPoint was founded in 2009 and has four employees. Its principals, Dan Wilson and Bob Dignan, were in an equal partnership prior to the acquisition. Wilson will serve as managing director of the Delafield office and Dignan will remain on board as a wealth advisor.
“Midland has a very similar corporate culture,” Wilson said. “They have a large footprint and we’re able to take the platform that we’ve built across their footprint. And they did not have an RIA business.”
The driving factors behind the acquisition of CedarPoint were its culture and the geographic location, said Eric Chojnicki, president of Midland Wealth Management. But proposed federal legislation surrounding the fiduciary standard in wealth management makes the RIA space an attractive source of growth, he said.
“I just think the way they approach their clients, taking that holistic financial planning approach, makes sense and fits with how we like to approach our clients,” Chojnicki said. “(Fiduciary) certainly is a path we want to continue on. That model is attractive … regardless of maybe where the legislation shakes out.”
Midland Wealth Management operates primarily on a fee-based, transparent model, acting as a fiduciary, he said.
Midland States Bancorp entered the Milwaukee market in 2014 with a commercial loan production office in Wauwatosa. That office has since transitioned to exclusively wealth management, and the company does not have further banking plans for Milwaukee at the moment, Chojnicki said.
Midland Wealth Management now has about $1.9 billion in assets under administration and 50 financial professionals.
