Captrust

CAPTRUST Financial Advisors (commonly referred to as CAPTRUST) is a U.S.-based independent investment advisory and fiduciary services firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1997, the firm serves a broad client base including institutional clients, private wealth clients and nonprofit organizations. CAPTRUST specializes in investment advisory, fiduciary support, risk-management and wealth-planning services.^[4]

Captrust

Company type	Private
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1997 [1]
Headquarters	Raleigh, North Carolina
Area served	United States
AUM	USD$220 billion (2025) [2]
Number of employees	1,960 (2025) [3]
Website	https://www.captrust.com/

As of June 2024, the firm employed approximately 1,900 people in over ninety locations and reported more than USD$1 trillion in total client assets.^[5]

Background

CAPTRUST serves about five million plan participants through 3,000 retirement plans around the country.^[6] The company also provides investment consulting, fiduciary oversight and outsourced-chief-investment-officer (OCIO) services to plan sponsors, endowments and foundations.

CAPTRUST is one of the largest OCIO providers, with USD$209 billion in outsourced assets under management.^[7] For its private-wealth clients, the firm offers comprehensive wealth-planning, portfolio construction, tax and estate-planning advisory, and other services designed to integrate individual goals with investment strategy.^[8]

CAPTRUST is a majority employee-owned company. More than half of employees participate in one or more of the firm’s equity programs. Moreover, expansion efforts — like the minority growth investment made by The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) in 2023 — support company growth while preserving employee equity and control.^[9]

History

Fielding Miller was manager of a bank branch, his first job out of college, when he started buying houses in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a “military town” adjacent to Fort Bragg, for rental income. But when deployment orders came in and soldiers went off to serve, Miller suddenly had no tenants. Faced with the prospect of bankruptcy and motivated to turn things around, Miller became a stockbroker.^[10]

In Miller’s first two years with the brokerage Interstate/Johnson Lane Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina, he became one of the company’s most successful salespeople. Eight years later, in 1996, he would partner with other top Interstate advisers to launch CAPTRUST Financial Advisors, with an initial asset base of approximately USD$400 million.^[11]

In 2002, in the wake of the dot-com bust and the Enron scandal, CAPTRUST committed itself to growth while other firms cut staff, reduced budgets and halted aggressive investments. With the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which required corporations to improve financial disclosures and leverage more fiduciary oversight, CAPTRUST was well positioned in that space.^[12] In 2013, Miller said that from that point, the company was “downwind, and we’ve just been in the right place at the right time.”^[13]

In 2004, Miller introduced the One Brick at a Time (OBAAT) concept, born from the belief that the best way to build a world-class organization is one piece at a time: one client, one colleague, one relationship. By 2009, CAPTRUST had increased staff by more than 50%, while adding offices in Ohio, California, Florida and Texas.^{[14] [15]} In 2010, the firm moved into its new headquarters: the 17-story CAPTRUST Tower in North Hills, NC — with USD$44 billion in assets under advisement.^{[16] [17]}

The next ten years saw significant growth, with CAPTRUST expanding to USD$390 billion in assets under advisement by 2020. By June of that year, GTCR, a leading private equity firm, made a 25% minority growth investment in the firm, which reflected a USD$1.25 billion valuation of CAPTRUST.^[18] Since then, CAPTRUST has purchased 29 companies; most notably Portfolio Evaluations Inc., Ellwood Associates, Wealth Covenant Group, Boston Financial Management, Campbell Wealth Management, TruNorth Wealth Partners, Carolinas Investment Consulting and Cobblestone Capital Advisors.^[19] And, as of June 2025, CAPTRUST surpassed USD$1trillion in total client assets.^[20]

Business Model / Philosophy

CAPTRUST serves three core client-segments: Individuals & Families; Retirement Plan Sponsors; and, Endowment & Foundation Leaders, the latter of which comprises nonprofit organizations, foundations and endowments looking to sustain long-term growth.^[21]

The firm introduced the “No Golf Ball Rule” upon its founding, which prohibits financial advisors from accepting meals, trips or gifts of any kind, even items as small as a golf ball.^[22] Explains Joseph C. Howard, Vice President and Financial Advisor at CAPTRUST: “As a fiduciary, our sole responsibility is to act in our clients’ best interests, free from conflicts of interest.”^[23]

The firm emphasizes employee ownership, with more than half of CAPTRUST employees participating in one or more of the firm’s equity programs.^[24] It was listed as one of Triangle Business Journal’s 2024 “Best Places to Work.”^[25] Additionally, employees run the CAPTRUST Community Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to enrich the lives of children by awarding grants nationwide to nonprofits supported by CAPTRUST employees.^[26]

Awards / Rankings

Financial Advisor magazine listed CAPTRUST at number one on its 2025 RIA Ranking of financial firms in the asset category of “1 billion and over.”^[27] That was the tenth consecutive year CAPTRUST received that honor.^[28] CAPTRUST was also named to Crisil Coalition Greenwich’s list of Best Investment Consultants of 2025.^[29]