The process of consolidating investment advisory services advanced another step forward this Friday, March 13th. Nucleopar Investimentos and Virtue announced the merger of their operations, creating a platform with R$ 4.5 billion under custody, approximately 150 advisors, and around 7,200 active clients.

The transaction had Veritas, a consulting firm specializing in the financial market, as its sole advisor. “A large part of these movements is a larger force absorbing a smaller one. Our spirit is to start a new business based on already established experiences,” says Marcelo Porto, founding partner and CEO of Nucleopar, to NeoFeed .

The new company, which will use Nucleopar as its sole brand, aims to position itself as an alternative for mid-sized law firms seeking scale without sacrificing autonomy.

“Pretentiously, perhaps we will become a third way in this movement,” says Porto, who remains as CEO of the new operation. His brother Maurício Porto will be the COO and Philipe Jorge, founder of Virtue, the CCO.

In structuring the business and modeling the new operation, Veritas realized that the merger would bring together two operations with different profiles throughout the investor journey.

Nucleopar, with approximately R$3 billion under management, has a strong presence among clients with more consolidated assets and greater financial complexity. Furthermore, the firm is known for its history in equities, with its two founders coming from the era of open outcry trading on the stock exchange.

Virtue, which manages R$ 1.5 billion, has a stronger presence in the initial phase of investor training and differentiates itself by working with fixed income, mainly private credit securities.

According to Porto, the logic behind the operation lies not only in cost reduction (one of the traditional arguments in mergers) but mainly in the potential for generating new revenue.

“More than cost synergies, the determining factor in the merger is the ability to generate significant revenue alpha from the complementarities between the companies,” says Porto.

Despite the typical complexity of this type of transaction, the negotiation was relatively quick. The entire process took about four months – from signing the confidentiality agreement to defining the new corporate structure.

“The work was much more technical than about negotiation. When we presented the valuation of the two companies, the parties quickly reached a consensus,” says Anderson Timm, CEO of Veritas.

More selective market

The merger comes at a time when growth in the sector is beginning to slow. The numbers indicate a more mature market that is less dependent on the opening of new offices.

A survey by Veritas, based on data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), shows that 3,508 new individual advisors entered the market in 2025, a decrease of 6.2% compared to the previous year.

In the case of consultancies structured as legal entities, 168 new offices were registered, a decrease of 26.6%, totaling 1,426 active operations in the country.

“This scenario points to growth that is increasingly based on the consolidation of operations and economies of scale,” says Anderson Timm, CEO of Veritas.

The move by Nucleopar and Virtue follows a wave of consolidation among investment advisory firms in Brazil. In recent months, operations such as SVN's acquisition of IVP and Blue3's purchase of Únimo, based in Curitiba, have reinforced the search for scale in the sector.

XP itself has also accelerated investments in independent firms, such as its stakes in Nippur Finance and Inove Investimentos.

On another front, Monte Bravo incorporated Trafalgar Investimentos, adding approximately R$ 7 billion in assets to its platform.

According to Timm, Nucleopar can position itself as a consolidator in the consulting market, especially among medium-sized firms. "This case already sends a message to the market that Nucleopar can position itself as one of the major consolidators in the sector."