Denver-based Mercer Global Advisors acquires Hart Capital Management

Denver-based Mercer Global Advisors Inc. has acquired Hart Capital Management Inc., a wealth management firm headquartered in Spokane with an office in Coeur d’Alene.

Hart Capital Management was founded in 1998 by Craig Hart, president and chief investment officer of the company. Hart Capital serves nearly 400 clients and manages more than $440 million in assets.

Craig Hart will remain with Mercer Global Advisors as a client advisor and branch manager of the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene offices. Hart Capital Management’s nine employees will also join Mercer Global Advisors.

“We had reached a level of needing to invest heavily in our business to develop the scale and infrastructure necessary to service our ever-increasing client needs,” Hart said in a statement. “It was a build-it-or-join-it decision.”

Hart said the acquisition provides Hart Capital Management with the ability to offer clients more in-house services, such as estate planning, tax return preparation and corporate trustee assistance.

“We felt the best decision was to join a national firm that had already built this infrastructure, with the added scale of dedicated middle and back office departments, such as dedicated marketing and sales teams and best in class technology with on-call IT experts,” Hart said.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Mercer Global Advisors, founded in 1985, specializes in investment advice, financial and estate planning, taxes, and corporate trustee and trust administration services.

The firm, which has 45 locations nationwide, describes itself as one of the “largest Registered Investment Advisors and financial planning firms in the U.S.”

The privately held firm manages nearly $27 billion in client assets and has more than 520 employees.

“We are very excited to partner with Craig and the Hart team,” Dave Welling, chief executive officer of Mercer Global Advisors, said in a statement. “We are investing heavily in the Pacific Northwest as we push to become the natural best choice for those (high net worth) clients looking for family office-style care and support.”