Key Takeaways

• Trust capabilities are becoming essential for RIAs moving up-market, as ultra-high-net-worth families rely on trusts for long-term governance, tax efficiency, and multi-generational wealth transfer.
• Lacking a trustee solution puts RIAs at risk of losing client visibility and assets, since trust administration creates frequent touchpoints and can shift key relationships to external trust companies that may also compete for wealth-management business.
• RIAs have three strategic paths to add trust services – build, buy, or outsource – and the right choice depends on firm strategy, client needs, and operational readiness, with clarity around desired client experience being the core determinant.

A growing number of RIAs are positioning themselves up-market, targeting larger households, multi-generational families, and clients whose needs extend well beyond investment management. Ultra-high-net-worth clients often rely on trusts not just for estate planning but as central vehicles for governance, control, tax efficiency, and multi-generational wealth transfer. These structures must be administered accurately and consistently for years – often decades – after they are created.

For these clients, a capable corporate trustee is not merely helpful; it is essential. Attorneys and planning professionals can design sophisticated trust arrangements, but the trustee is the party responsible for carrying them out. As RIAs seek to serve larger, more complex families, the absence of a trustee solution becomes a strategic limitation. Many firms find that they can provide strong planning advice, only to see implementation, and the associated assets, move to a trust company or financial institution that may also offer wealth management.

This is one reason trust capabilities are increasingly central to the up-market strategy conversation.

Trust Services as a Competitive Requirement

When an RIA lacks a trustee solution, the firm risks losing visibility — and sometimes assets — when a client’s planning transitions from design to execution. Trust administration often involves ongoing investment oversight, cash management, beneficiary communication, and coordination with outside professionals. Those responsibilities create frequent client touchpoints, and firms that hold the trustee role naturally sit closer to the family’s governance and financial decision-making.

RIAs that develop or control trustee capabilities internally can maintain that proximity. They benefit from higher wallet share, better retention, and stronger continuity across generations. Just as important, they reduce the need to send assets to external trust providers who may also compete directly for wealth-management business.

Different Paths to the Same Strategic Question

For RIAs seeking to add trust capabilities, there are three ways to do so: building internally, acquiring a trust business, or partnering with an outsourced provider of trust services.

• Building internally provides the greatest control and the cleanest integration with planning and portfolio management. It also presents the steepest learning curve. Operating a trust company or trust department introduces a regulator that most RIAs have never worked with, along with a supervisory framework that differs materially from the investment advisory model. Trust administration carries its own service cadence, documentation standards, and fiduciary risk profile. Firms accustomed to advisory workflows often find that trust operations require entirely new processes, personnel skill sets, and oversight mechanisms. As a result, even well-scaled RIAs may conclude that building internally is more complex than anticipated.
• Acquiring a trust business can accelerate the move up-market by providing established processes, personnel, and credibility. It signals to clients that the firm is committed to handling more sophisticated needs. The challenge — as with any acquisition — is integrating a business with different regulatory expectations and workflows into an RIA model that may not be structured for it today.
• Outsourcing remains the most common entry point. Partnering with a third party trust company enables an RIA to meet client needs without building an internal function or pursuing an acquisition. Some firms view outsourcing as a long-term model; others treat it as a bridge while they shape a more permanent solution. In all cases, partner selection matters, because clients experience the trustee relationship as an extension of the advisory firm.

Aligning Capability With Strategy

The more an RIA aims to serve clients with layered planning needs, the more important it is to have a trust strategy that reflects that ambition. Trust services influence client retention, asset durability, and the firm’s role across generations — all focal points for RIAs moving up-market.

There is no universal answer to how firms should add these capabilities. What matters is clarity: understanding the type of client the firm wants to serve, the experience it intends to deliver, and the operational profile it is willing to build or manage. Trust capabilities sit at the intersection of those decisions.

About Mercer Capital

Mercer Capital’s investment management industry group provides valuation, transaction, litigation, and consulting services to a client base consisting of asset managers, wealth managers, independent trust companies, broker-dealers, PE firms and alternative managers, and related investment consultancies.