Methodology
What Quarry measures, where the data comes from, and what it cannot tell you.
What Quarry is
Quarry ranks SEC-registered investment advisers against a stated acquisition thesis, using only what those firms file with the SEC.
Every figure on a firm’s profile comes from its own Form ADV. Nothing is estimated from a model, bought from a data broker, or inferred from a firm’s website beyond what that website says in its own words. Where a figure is missing, the profile leaves it blank and says why — a blank is not a value.
Where the data comes from
| Source | What it gives us | How current |
|---|---|---|
| Form ADV Part 1 | Assets, clients, accounts, staff, ownership, custodians, disciplinary history | Monthly SEC extract |
| Form ADV Part 2A (the brochure) | Fee schedules, minimums, services, stated conflicts | As filed by the firm; each value quoted verbatim |
| Firm websites | The firm's own description of itself | Where held; quoted, dated |
Coverage is SEC-registered advisers only. Advisers below the SEC threshold register with their state instead and file through a system with no bulk data source, so they do not appear here. A search that misses one says so and offers a link to look it up on IAPD.
| Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|
| 21,837 advisers filing with the SEC | Distinct advisers that filed an annual updating amendment in the 12 months to Jun 2026 — 16,242 registered advisers plus 5,595 exempt reporting advisers, each counted once. Every SEC filer must file one within 90 days of its fiscal year end, so this tracks who is actively filing today. |
| 30,030 firms on record | Every adviser that has appeared in any monthly SEC extract we hold since November 2011 — the fifteen-year historical universe. Most are no longer registered. This is the population the history behind a growth rate is drawn from, not a count of live firms. |
How many firms each thesis screens
A thesis excludes a different population before it ranks anything, so the three screens do not cover the same firms. The eligible universe for each, and how they add up:
| Thesis | Firms screened | In the top four bands (B and above) |
|---|---|---|
| Succession | 6,557 | 1,059 |
| Minority-stake | 5,930 | 946 |
| PE-consolidator | 3,420 | 958 |
| Distinct firms, any thesis | 6,888 | — |
The distinct total is lower than the three added together because most firms are screened by more than one thesis; a firm ranked by all three is counted once. It is the figure the landing page states, and it is the only honest single number — taking the largest of the three would put one thesis’s population under a label that reads like all of them.
How a firm is scored
A score is a rank within one thesis, not a verdict on a firm. The same firm scores differently under different theses, because they are asking different questions.
- Succession — Aging, independent, single-owner books with no succession plan.
- Minority-stake — Independent, growing books with a long-runway owner.
- PE-consolidator — Larger, steady independents that are clean to integrate.
Four components feed a score, each measured out of 100. The total is a fixed weighted combination of the components.
- Owner succession exposure — the age profile of ownership, whether control sits with one person, and whether new owners have appeared over time.
- Growth trajectory — the direction and rate of regulatory AUM, measured against both a peer group of similarly-sized firms and a 60/40 market benchmark.
- Deal cleanliness — the discretionary share of the book, whether Schedule A is individuals only, and the absence of disciplinary disclosures.
- Filing behaviour — the pattern of amendments a firm files.
Bands are cutoffs on the combined score: A+ 90+ · A 85+ · B+ 80+ · B 75+ · C 65+ · D below 65. Bands use one muted colour ramp deliberately — a band is a rank, and traffic-light colours would tell you something the score does not say.
Each component is scored on a continuous scale and shown as a band. The total keeps one decimal so that firms in the same band have an order within it — the same bands, different positions inside them.
Firms owned through a company
When a firm’s 25%-or-more owner on Schedule A is a company rather than a person, Quarry reads the firm’s own Schedule B to see who stands behind it.
- It resolves to people. The firm is screened like any other, and a person who controls that company counts as the firm’s owner at the company’s stake.
- A named financial sponsor is on the chain. The profile carries a badge stating the sponsor, the ownership band filed on Schedule B, and when it was acquired. A sponsor at 25–50% keeps the firm out of the succession screen; at 50% or more the firm is screened for PE consolidation only. The badge does not say whether the sponsor controls the firm — the filings often do not say either.
- It resolves to neither. The firm stays out of every screen and its profile says why: that Form ADV does not resolve the owner, or that no Schedule B was filed.
What the growth comparison does and does not mean
A firm’s regulatory AUM is compared against a 60/40 benchmark over the same window. The difference is stated in percentage points per year.
Form ADV reports assets at a date; it never reports organic net flows. The gap against the benchmark is a comparison of two rates. A firm behind its benchmark may have lost clients, or may simply hold a different mix of assets than the benchmark does. The filing does not say which, so neither does the page — and it never calls this figure a flow.
A growth rate needs at least three distinct measured values spanning at least two years. A firm with less filed history shows its filings but no rate, no trend line and no benchmark comparison, and its growth component is held neutral.
What we cannot tell you
- Whether a firm is for sale. Nothing here is an indication of intent. No firm in this dataset has told us anything.
- An owner’s actual age or tenure. Form ADV does not carry it. Where a tenure range appears it is estimated from the owner’s CRD-number vintage and labelled as an estimate, shown as a range and never a point. Measured against 10,470 verified records, that estimate understates tenure about nine times in ten, which is why the range is wider above than below.
- Why a figure moved. A drop in reported assets may be markets, departures, a restatement, or a change in what the firm reports. Where a movement looks like a filing artefact rather than a change in the business, the profile says so.
- Anything about valuation. Quarry does not compute revenue, margin or multiples, and does not display them.
- Whether the scoring works. There is no dataset of firms that actually sold, so nothing here is calibrated against realised outcomes. The thesis is a stated argument, not a validated predictor.
How current it is
Firm data comes from a monthly SEC extract. Data is current to the Jun 2026 extract. Each figure on a profile is dated by the filing it came from — if a firm’s latest filing is off-cycle, the profile says “as most recently filed” rather than naming a fiscal year it cannot support.