New Mountain Capital has exited its investment in Lincoln Investment Capital Holdings, ending a six-year private-equity partnership and returning full ownership of the approximately $63 billion wealth-management and retirement-services company to the Forst family and advisor shareholders. The transaction, announced September 2, marks an unusual ownership turn in a sector where private capital has often been followed by subsequent recapitalizations, strategic sales or combinations with larger wealth-management platforms.

Lincoln Investment, based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, operates as both an independent broker-dealer and registered investment adviser. The company represents approximately $63 billion in fee-based and brokerage client assets through a nationwide network of financial professionals. New Mountain’s holding was non-controlling, according to WealthManagement.com, and the firms did not disclose financial terms for either the original investment or the exit.

The ownership change brings Lincoln back under the control of the Forst family and advisor shareholders rather than transferring the company to another private-equity sponsor or strategic buyer. That distinction is important for advisors assessing the long-term direction of independent wealth platforms. Ownership structure can influence capital allocation, recruiting strategy, technology spending, acquisition appetite and the economics ultimately offered to financial professionals operating on a firm’s platform.

New Mountain invested in Lincoln in 2020 as part of a strategy centered on modernizing the company’s operating platform, strengthening its leadership organization and increasing its fee-based business. During the partnership, Lincoln said fee-based assets expanded by approximately 75%. Its total client assets have since reached roughly $63 billion across advisory and brokerage relationships.

The growth in fee-based assets is particularly relevant to the wealth-management industry. Independent broker-dealers historically generated substantial revenue from commissions, securities transactions and insurance products, while the broader advisory market has increasingly shifted toward recurring asset-based fees and planning relationships. A larger fee-based business can improve revenue visibility, deepen long-term client relationships and make investments in centralized technology and service infrastructure more economical across a large advisor network.

For Lincoln, New Mountain’s tenure appears to have been structured around that transition rather than a fundamental change in the company’s independent-advisor identity. Management emphasized investments in technology infrastructure and operational capacity, while the firm expanded the executive team responsible for technology, operations and advisor recruiting. The result is a business that enters its renewed family-ownership phase with significantly greater scale than when New Mountain arrived.

The private-equity firm itself manages approximately $60 billion across private equity, strategic equity, credit and net lease real estate strategies. Its Lincoln investment therefore represented one element of a much broader portfolio. New Mountain describes its investment model as focused on building businesses and pursuing growth, and the Lincoln transaction provides a relatively clear example of an institutional investor entering as a minority capital partner and later departing without selling the company to an outside consolidator.

The exit also comes immediately after a major leadership succession at Lincoln. In June, Kathy Leckey became chief executive, while longtime CEO Ed Forst moved into the executive chairman position. Leckey had previously served in several senior roles at the company, including chief of staff to the CEO, chief operating officer and president, giving the firm internal continuity even as responsibility for day-to-day leadership shifted to a new chief executive.

That timing suggests the ownership transition and management succession were closely aligned components of Lincoln’s longer-term transformation. New Mountain and Lincoln described the leadership changes as part of a multi-year succession plan intended to provide institutional stability while supporting advisor recruiting and technology integration. Completing that process before New Mountain’s departure reduces the risk of simultaneously changing both ownership and executive leadership without a prepared management structure.

Lincoln has also built out senior management below the CEO level. Earlier in 2026, the firm appointed Anthony Bueti as chief operating officer as part of a broader restructuring that included leadership focused on information technology and business development. Lincoln said those appointments were designed to strengthen operational controls, improve digital capabilities, support advisor productivity and create infrastructure capable of handling continued asset growth. The firm said in April that its network included more than 1,000 financial professionals.

For advisors on the Lincoln platform, continuity may be one of the most important immediate consequences of the transaction. The ownership group is changing because New Mountain is leaving, but the firm is not being absorbed into another broker-dealer, converted into a unit of a national bank or transferred to an unfamiliar strategic owner. The Forst family remains closely connected to the company, advisor shareholders retain an ownership role and the executive team assembled during the transformation remains responsible for executing the operating strategy.

The structure could also preserve a degree of cultural continuity at a time when advisor affiliation decisions increasingly turn on questions that extend well beyond payout grids. Financial professionals evaluate technology, service support, succession resources, investment flexibility, compliance infrastructure and the stability of a platform’s ownership. An ownership change that maintains the existing organization may therefore create less disruption than an acquisition requiring technology migrations, product rationalization or changes in advisor contracts.

Clients are unlikely to experience the transaction primarily as a change in investment products. Instead, its significance rests in governance and the resources supporting advisors. Lincoln’s business spans retirement savings, wealth management, advisory services, insurance and brokerage relationships. WealthManagement.com reported that the firm has approximately 400 employees in addition to its network of roughly 1,000 financial professionals.

Lincoln also retains deep exposure to the retirement market, including the 403(b) segment serving employees of schools and other tax-exempt organizations. That heritage gives the company a client base and distribution profile distinct from wealth firms built predominantly through acquisitions of high-net-worth registered investment advisers. Its combination of retirement-plan relationships, brokerage services and advisory accounts means technology and operating investments have to support both long-duration retirement savers and broader household wealth relationships.

The 75% increase in fee-based assets during New Mountain’s investment period therefore carries strategic significance beyond the headline growth rate. As more assets move into advisory relationships, Lincoln can potentially deepen recurring planning engagements with households that may have initially entered through workplace retirement channels or transactional accounts. At the same time, fee-based growth places additional demands on portfolio technology, billing, compliance oversight, reporting and advisor workstation integration.

Those infrastructure requirements help explain why technology was repeatedly highlighted by Lincoln and New Mountain when describing the partnership. In April, Lincoln said it was implementing automated workflows, strengthening operational controls and refining back-office processes to reduce administrative burdens on advisors. It also appointed a chief information and technology officer with responsibility for digital transformation and advisor-facing technology.

That technology spending is increasingly central to competition among independent wealth platforms. Advisors seeking to move practices can compare not only economics and investment menus but the efficiency with which firms handle onboarding, account opening, client reporting, compliance reviews, digital communications and service requests. A broker-dealer with more than 1,000 financial professionals must deliver those capabilities at considerable scale while maintaining regulatory controls across geographically dispersed practices.

For New Mountain, the exit crystallizes the end of an investment period that began before many of the wealth industry’s more recent ownership transactions. The firms did not reveal New Mountain’s entry valuation, exit valuation or investment return, limiting the ability to calculate the financial performance of the stake. There was also no disclosed purchase price attached to the return of ownership to the Forst family and advisor shareholders.

The absence of transaction economics places greater attention on the operating milestones disclosed by the companies: a roughly 75% increase in fee-based assets, total client assets of approximately $63 billion, investments in technology and the completion of a leadership succession. Those measures indicate that New Mountain’s involvement was intended to increase Lincoln’s scale and institutional capacity before the investor exited.

Legal advisers confirmed the transaction structure. Ropes & Gray said it represented New Mountain Capital in the exit, while the companies’ announcement identified Morgan Lewis & Bockius as counsel to Lincoln Investment. Ropes & Gray said the transaction returned full ownership to the Forst family and advisor shareholders.

The return to family and advisor ownership also differentiates Lincoln from the consolidation path followed by many wealth businesses that take institutional capital. WealthManagement.com characterized the move as relatively uncommon in the independent broker-dealer sector, where private-equity investments and ownership changes have increasingly accompanied consolidation.

Private capital can offer independent firms resources to invest in technology, recruit management talent or pursue acquisitions without immediately selling to a larger financial institution. But it also raises questions for advisors about eventual liquidity events. Investment funds normally operate with finite holding periods, making the ultimate exit route an important element of ownership risk. Lincoln’s transaction shows one alternative: institutional capital can leave while family and internal shareholders resume full ownership of a business that has become larger and more professionally managed during the investment period.

Whether that structure produces a competitive advantage will depend on Lincoln’s ability to sustain the investment pace established over the past six years. Family ownership can support longer-duration decision-making, but a wealth platform of Lincoln’s size still requires significant spending on cybersecurity, compliance, digital tools, advisor service and recruitment. The company will also have to demonstrate that its post-New Mountain capital structure can support continued expansion without sacrificing the independence emphasized in announcing the transaction.

Recruiting will be an important test. Lincoln’s leadership restructuring explicitly assigned responsibility for business development and advisor recruitment, suggesting the firm plans to use the modernized platform as a growth tool. Advisor additions can create operating leverage because technology and centralized infrastructure are spread over a larger asset and revenue base, but competitive recruiting packages and transition assistance can also require significant capital.

The transition may additionally help Lincoln position itself to advisors who value participation in a privately controlled organization. Advisor shareholders now sit alongside the Forst family as the full owners of the firm following New Mountain’s exit. While the companies did not disclose the ownership percentages held by either group, the structure offers a different proposition from platforms controlled by public companies, banks or private-equity sponsors.

CEO Kathy Leckey framed the New Mountain partnership as a period in which Lincoln strengthened its technology and expanded its capabilities while positioning the business for continued growth. Executive Chairman Ed Forst similarly credited the investment firm with helping advance important platform investments and described the ownership change as the beginning of a new chapter for an independent, advisor- and family-owned organization.

The transaction therefore closes one phase of Lincoln Investment’s development without signaling a retreat from the modernization undertaken during New Mountain’s involvement. The more important question for advisors and clients is whether the firm can now convert the technology, leadership and fee-based asset growth achieved under institutional backing into sustainable organic expansion under family and advisor control.

With approximately $63 billion in client assets, more than 1,000 financial professionals and a newly installed CEO, Lincoln is substantially larger and more institutionally structured than a traditional family-run advisory enterprise. New Mountain’s exit leaves that infrastructure intact while transferring full economic control back to the organization’s long-term stakeholders. In a wealth-management sector where ownership has become a strategic issue for advisors as well as investors, Lincoln’s return to family ownership will provide a closely watched test of whether scale and independence can remain compatible after private-equity capital departs.