Impact Management | March 4, 2021

Abacus merges with Robasciotti & Philipson to meet client demand for social justice strategies

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

ImpactAlpha, Mar 4 –  Abacus’ Brent Kessel and Rachel Robasciotti of Robasciotti & Philipson collaborated on Due Diligence 2.0 (see, and listen to, “The Reconstruction: How unlikely partners came together to fight racial bias in asset allocation). Now they are merging their California-based advisory firms.

Santa Monica-based Abacus, with $3.8 billion in assets under management, will absorb San Francisco-based R&P, which advises more than 110 households representing $130 million in assets.

“This partnership enables us to leverage our platform and resources to further advance our clients’ social justice-driven investment strategies,” says Kessel (see, “Brent Kessel: Expanding what’s possible with money”).

Robasciotti and Maya Philipson will join Abacus but continue to separately run Adasina Social Capital, which they created to connect financial markets with movements for economic and racial justice. 

Robasciotti last year launched the Adasina Social Justice All Cap Global ETF. Adasina developed the screening criteria by working with social justice activists to identify issues affecting their communities. “This approach gives us a data advantage relative to other solutions,” she said at the time.

The deal is another signal of the consolidation among financial advisory firms as they beef up impact investing capacities. Earlier this week, Pathstone acquired Cornerstone Capital Group.