Australia’s asset-consulting landscape is being redrawn in real time. The latest marker is Ascalon Capital’s purchase of Evergreen Consultants (it’s been publicly described as a “merger,” but it isn’t). Under the terms understood in industry circles, Ascalon has acquired Evergreen, with the latter’s founder Angela Ashton (pictured) said to be staying on for about two years. On paper, it’s a neat fit. In practice, it raises awkward questions about where asset consultants now sit – and whether “scale” solves more problems than it creates.
Insiders from both firms frame the transaction as a meeting of minds rather than a takeover: aligned investment philosophies, client-first positioning, and an acceptance that the bar to compete has risen well beyond the “two people and a laptop” era. The strategy is familiar: combine Evergreen’s research culture, ESG credentials and proprietary tools (think the GreenVUE investment analytics platform and the ERIG fund grading framework) with Ascalon’s governance spine, resourcing and institutional backers. The combined entity is described as servicing about 40–45 clients with roughly $4 billion in funds under advice (FUA) – contributed roughly equally – and being capable of adding $1 billion–$1.5 billion annually in organic growth, while preserving a bespoke consulting DNA.
It all sounds eminently sensible. Yet the deal lands at a moment when asset consulting is wrestling with an identity crisis.
“Get bigger or get out” has become an industry refrain. Platforms demand ever-broader services – model governance, practice management, data integration, reporting – while fee pressure grinds margins. Scale promises continuity, bench depth and better systems. But it also risks homogenising advice, nudging consultants from true independence toward productised solutions and “implemented consulting” that can blur the line between adviser, selector and manufacturer.
When consultants stress they’ll keep bespoke mandates alongside off-the-shelf models, it’s an acknowledgement of this tension. The practical question is whether custom work can remain the norm when operating models, KPIs and cost discipline inevitably reward repeatability. Bespoke is artisanal; scale prefers assembly lines.
Ascalon’s institutional capital and governance processes are real advantages in a tightening regulatory climate. Still, capital is never neutral. The more consultants migrate toward multi-service platforms, the harder it becomes to maintain the perception (and sometimes the reality) of arm’s-length independence. Procurement panels, revenue concentration and systems entanglement can create subtle incentives that shape research coverage, implementation choices, and the “house view.”
If larger institutions do rationalise consultant panels to a handful of preferred providers – as many expect – the market may gain consistency but lose plurality. Herd behaviour is efficient until it isn’t.
The industry’s “barbell effect” is well-observed: at one end, corporatised operators with deep pockets; at the other, founder-led boutiques that survive on niche insight and personal reputation. The middle is being squeezed. Consolidation can protect clients from key-person risk and operational fragility. But it can also starve the ecosystem of contrarian research and small-firm experimentation – the messy places where new ideas often originate. If every consultant must look, feel and report like a mini-institution, who does the original thinking?
ASIC/APRA attention on managed accounts and governance amplified by cautionary tales from elsewhere pushes consultants to build heavier control frameworks. Good. Yet the burden is not just cost; it can shift focus from pure research to process compliance. For firms building “business consulting” arms alongside investment capability, role clarity matters. The more a consultant is embedded in implementation, the more clients should interrogate conflict management, fee transparency and escalation protocols.
The Evergreen–Ascalon narrative is attractive: better research depth, stronger governance, superior reporting, and still bespoke. Delivering all four at once is possible—but operationally demanding. Integrating data models, risk systems, manager research taxonomies and client reporting across two firms is non-trivial. Maintaining research tempo while unifying methodologies is harder still. Meanwhile, markets don’t pause for integration.
The growth targets – $1 billion–$1.5 billion a year of organic FUA – are ambitious. They may be achievable, but only if the combined firm can prove that “scale with independence” is more than a pitch line: faster due-diligence cycles without shortcuts; coverage breadth that doesn’t dilute conviction; and client-specific portfolio design that doesn’t quietly collapse into house models for efficiency’s sake.
What clients should watch
- Decision trails and conflicts: Clear, written frameworks showing how product, platform and implementation recommendations are separated from commercial interests – then evidenced in actual decisions.
- Bespoke in practice: Frequency of model deviations, custom constraints honoured, and the turnaround time for client-specific research.
- Research depth vs. coverage creep: Additions to coverage universes should be matched by resourcing, not just absorbed by analysts.
- Panel exposure: How concentrated are the firm’s revenues in a few platforms or institutions, and what happens if panels consolidate further?
- People continuity: With founder-level leaders on transition clocks, is succession real, resourced and visible to clients?
Where does this leave asset consultants?
Perhaps right where they’ve always been – between the ideals of independence and the economics of distribution. The purchase of Evergreen by Ascalon is a credible bid to square that circle: a privately owned, well-resourced platform that says it can scale without losing its bespoke core. It might work. But it will require constant choices that favour client specificity over operational convenience, and research integrity over panel pragmatism.
If asset consulting is to avoid becoming just another channel for pre-packaged portfolio manufacturing, firms will need to prove – transaction by transaction, mandate by mandate – that their advice remains genuinely situational, their governance more than compliance theatre and their growth more than aggregation.
This deal could be a model for a sturdier, more capable consultant; or it could be a milestone on the road to a narrower, more uniform marketplace. The industry will choose which.