“M&A in wealth management is red hot — there is a frothiness out there,” Dave Barton, vice chairman of Mercer Advisors, said during a panel discussion at last month’s MarketCounsel Summit in Las Vegas.

Barton knows of what he speaks. Mercer announced Thursday that it had acquired Dragon Financial Group, a San Mateo, California-based RIA that provides financial planning and investment management services to San Francisco Bay area investors.

This was Mercer’s 17th acquisition over the past three years; these have fattened its coffers by more than $6 billion.