Cresset moves to buy the trust company 340 wealth firms already use
Multi-family office Cresset said in early October 2026 that it is pursuing a combination with National Advisors Trust, a $7.7 billion white-label trust platform. The deal would put a shared fiduciary utility under the ownership of one of its users.
In an announcement reported on 5 October 2026, Cresset Capital Management, a US multi-family office with more than $250 billion in client assets, said it was “pursuing” a combination with National Advisors Trust (NAT), according to WealthManagement.com. Family Wealth Report described Cresset the following day as close to acquiring the firm. Neither report gives a price, and the deal had not completed at the time of writing. The figures below come from Cresset’s own announcement and statements to the trade press.
What NAT is
NAT is based in Leawood, Kansas, and was founded in 2001. It holds $7.7 billion in trust assets under administration for independent advisers, institutions and families. Its main product, Brand Advantage, is a white-label programme: an adviser can offer trust services to clients under the adviser’s own name while NAT acts as the trust company behind it. According to WealthManagement.com, NAT works with more than 340 wealth firms, 13,000 advisers and 17,000 families in the United States.
What Cresset plans to do with it
Cresset runs a trust and services division of about $5.4 billion, which currently operates under its own state charters. The plan is to move that business onto NAT’s national trust charter over time instead of running two platforms. Together they would administer about $13.1 billion.
NAT would carry on as an independent trust company within the Cresset group, and Cresset would become one of its clients. A Cresset spokesperson told WealthManagement.com that the firm would keep investing in NAT to grow its external adviser base and to pursue acquisitions. James Combs, NAT’s president and chief executive, said, as quoted by Family Wealth Report, that independence “has always been central to who we are.”
Cresset chief executive Susie Cranston called the deal an expansion of national trust services for independent advisers and family offices. Other US firms have built the same capability by different routes. Alvarez & Marsal Private Wealth Partners set up its own national trust company earlier this year, and F.L.Putnam bought New Hampshire-chartered Darwin Trust Company in 2024. Cresset itself merged with Monticello Associates, an institutional consultant to foundations, endowments and family offices, last year.
What it means for family offices
A white-label trust company sells neutrality. If the deal completes, advisers who use NAT will be placing client trust assets with a firm owned by Cresset, which also competes with many of them for the same families. Cresset says NAT will remain independent. For a family whose trustee sits behind its adviser’s brand, the first step is to find out which entity actually holds the fiduciary role. The second is to ask what information about the family flows to that entity’s owner.
The point applies outside the US. The Almanac covered the same shift in Jersey, where the ownership of JTC changed hands on 1 September. Trustee consolidation is moving the fiduciary layer into larger groups with interests of their own. Families and their advisers should check who owns the trustee at each review, as they already check fees and performance.
Sources: WealthManagement.com, 5 October 2026; Family Wealth Report, 6 October 2026; ThinkAdvisor, 7 October 2026.