Hellman & Friedman LLC is picking up a majority stake in private equity-backed Edelman Financial Services for an undisclosed amount.

Edelman, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, manages about $15 billion for 28,000 clients through 41 offices. The asset manager also provides a handful of other financial services, including financial planning, investment management and education. The firm's senior management team will continue to own a stake in the business, as will Lee Equity Partners, the private equity firm that's selling Hellman a majority stake.

Lee Equity, a New York private equity firm, took Edelman private in 2012 in a $258 million transaction. The firm had been public since 1999, but saw its stock price decline after the financial crisis. The PE firm focuses on control buyouts, generally investing between $50 million and $150 million of equity per transaction.  

Lee Equity's other investments include LDS Group LLC, a health care communications group it bought in November, and MidCap Financial LLC, a health care lender. The firm ended up on Mergers & Acquisition's Latest PE Fundraising Efforts list in September.

San Francisco private equity firm Hellman & Friedman invests in software, financial services, Internet and media, business and information services, health care, insurance, retail and consumer and energy and industrial companies. In August, the firm agreed to sell education software provider Ellucian Co. to TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners in a leveraged buyout reportedly valued at $3.5 billion. In March, the firm agreed to sell mining research business Wood Mackenzie to Verisk Analytics Inc.

There have been quite a few deals for asset managers recently. In September, Mizuho Financial Group agreed to pick up a stake in Matthews International Capital Management from Lovell Minnick Partners, and before that, Ardian reportedly agreed to buy General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) private equity investment group. 

Broadly, dealmakers are expecting more M&A in the financial services sector, according to Mergers & Acquisition's Mid-Market Pulse, a forward-looking sentiment indicator published in partnership with McGladrey LLP. 

Financial services industry