B. Riley Securities is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and operates as the investment banking subsidiary of B. Riley Financial. The firm covers healthcare services M&A including behavioral health, with managing director Ben Matz serving as the firm’s primary public voice on ABA deal activity and market transformation.

Firm Overview: B. Riley Financial and the Investment Banking Subsidiary

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — B. Riley Securities is the investment banking subsidiary of B. Riley Financial, a diversified financial services holding company headquartered in Los Angeles. B. Riley Financial operates across multiple financial services businesses including investment banking, wealth management, financial advisory and consulting, and capital markets. B. Riley Securities specifically covers investment banking functions including M&A advisory, equity and debt capital markets, and institutional research.

B. Riley Financial is publicly traded, and its structure as a diversified financial services holding company with multiple operating subsidiaries gives B. Riley Securities a different organizational context than the pure-play advisory boutiques or the traditional full-service investment banks. The holding company structure means B. Riley Securities operates alongside other B. Riley Financial businesses — including restructuring and consulting practices, asset management, and specialty finance operations — that give the overall organization a broader set of relationships and capabilities than an isolated investment banking firm would have.

Within the investment banking division, B. Riley Securities covers a range of industry sectors. Healthcare services — including behavioral health and applied behavior analysis — is among the sectors where the firm has developed specific advisory expertise and market presence. The firm’s investment banking practice is oriented toward the middle market, consistent with the deal size range where the most active ABA M&A transactions occur. B. Riley Securities has developed visibility in the behavioral health advisory market that has been recognized in trade publication coverage, which is one of the most reliable indicators of actual sector activity.

The B. Riley platform’s restructuring capabilities: one dimension of B. Riley Financial’s multi-business platform that is relevant for the ABA market is the firm’s restructuring and consulting practice. ABA practices that are experiencing financial distress — whether from Medicaid rate pressure, billing compliance issues, workforce cost escalation, or operational challenges — may need a different kind of advisory support than a straightforward M&A process. A firm that can provide both restructuring advisory and M&A advisory within a single platform gives distressed or financially challenged ABA operators a more comprehensive advisory option than a pure M&A boutique.

Ben Matz’s public articulation that reimbursement innovation and technology are transforming ABA deal activity is one of the most specific market theses available from any active ABA M&A advisor. It points to a valuation thesis that goes beyond simple multiple expansion — to the structural changes in how ABA is paid for and delivered that will define the next phase of the sector’s M&A cycle.

Ben Matz on Reimbursement Innovation and Technology: Unpacking the Market Thesis

Ben Matz, managing director at B. Riley Securities, told Behavioral Health Business that he sees reimbursement innovation and technology as transforming the ABA space’s deal activity. That statement is one of the most specific and substantive public comments made by an active ABA M&A advisor about the market’s trajectory, and it deserves careful unpacking.

The reimbursement innovation dimension of Matz’s thesis refers to the structural changes in how ABA services are paid for that have been accumulating over the past several years. The traditional ABA reimbursement model — fee-for-service billing against a set of CPT codes with prior authorization and utilization management by Medicaid and commercial insurers — is being supplemented and in some cases replaced by value-based care contracts, global payment arrangements, and outcome-linked reimbursement structures. These alternative payment models create a different financial profile for ABA practices: more predictable revenue, potentially more favorable margins, and a clinical data infrastructure requirement that creates both barriers to entry and premium valuations for practices that have invested in outcomes measurement.

The technology dimension refers to the growing integration of practice management software, data analytics, and AI-assisted clinical tools into ABA service delivery. ABA practices that have invested in sophisticated data management systems — tools that capture behavioral data in real time, support treatment planning, and generate the outcome metrics that value-based contracts require — are operationally differentiated from practices that are still managing clinical data through manual or legacy processes. In an M&A context, technology infrastructure investment translates directly into premium valuation: buyers who are building platforms that will operate under value-based payment models pay more for practices that are already positioned for those models than for those that are not.

Together, Matz’s reimbursement innovation and technology thesis describes an ABA market in transition from a volume-based, fee-for-service model toward a quality-based, outcomes-linked model where technology infrastructure and clinical data capabilities are premium valuation drivers. This is not a distant future state; it is a transition that is already underway in specific payer markets, particularly in states that have advanced Medicaid managed care contracts with ABA-specific value-based provisions. For ABA operators and investors who are thinking about where valuations will go over the next three to five years, Matz’s thesis describes the directional forces that will reshape the premium-valuation segment of the ABA provider market.

Implications for practice owners: Matz’s market thesis has direct operational implications for ABA practice owners who are thinking about M&A in the next 24 to 36 months. Practices that invest in clinical outcomes measurement, technology infrastructure, and value-based care contracting capabilities between now and a future transaction are building the premium valuation drivers that Matz identifies. Practices that do not make these investments are selling at a disadvantage relative to peers who have. The advisor’s market thesis is directly actionable for operators who are willing to make the operational investments required to position for the market he describes.

Reimbursement innovation and technology infrastructure are the two forces that B. Riley Securities managing director Ben Matz identifies as transforming ABA deal activity. Practices that have invested in clinical data systems, outcomes measurement, and value-based care contracting capabilities are building the premium valuation drivers that will define the next phase of the ABA M&A market.

What Reimbursement Innovation Means for ABA Valuation

The reimbursement innovation landscape in ABA is more advanced than most practice owners recognize, partly because the changes are occurring at the payer and managed care organization level rather than through industry-wide policy changes that generate broad coverage. Several Medicaid managed care organizations in states with advanced managed care ABA programs have been piloting value-based payment arrangements with ABA providers, tying some portion of reimbursement to outcome metrics rather than purely to service volume. Commercial insurers in some markets have developed similar alternative payment arrangements with high-volume ABA providers.

These alternative payment models create a bifurcated ABA provider market from a valuation perspective. Practices that have entered value-based arrangements with payers have developed the clinical infrastructure — outcome measurement tools, data systems, reporting processes, and clinical governance structures — that those contracts require. That infrastructure is both operationally valuable and financially valuable: it produces better clinical outcomes for clients, generates data that demonstrates clinical quality to buyers, and creates a more defensible revenue stream than purely fee-for-service billing.

Practices that have not engaged with value-based payment models are operating on a purely volume-based reimbursement model that creates specific risk factors: sensitivity to prior authorization changes, exposure to Medicaid rate adjustments, and a revenue stream whose quality buyers evaluate primarily through historical billing data rather than clinical outcome metrics. In a competitive M&A process, a practice with a value-based revenue component and the clinical data infrastructure to support it will command a premium over a comparable practice with equivalent revenue but purely fee-for-service billing.

The reimbursement innovation thesis also encompasses the role of technology in enabling new payment model participation. Practices that lack the data systems to capture the outcome metrics required by value-based contracts cannot participate in those contracts. The investment in technology infrastructure is therefore a prerequisite for reimbursement innovation participation, which connects Matz’s two themes into a coherent platform thesis: technology investment enables reimbursement innovation participation, which creates premium valuations, which drives deal activity in the segment of the ABA market that has made those investments.

Value-based care and clinical quality measurement: the clinical quality metrics that value-based ABA contracts typically require — skill acquisition rates, behavior reduction outcomes, caregiver training engagement, school and community integration measures — are the same metrics that sophisticated buyers evaluate in ABA M&A due diligence. A practice that has been capturing these metrics for value-based contracting purposes has a built-in due diligence advantage: it can demonstrate clinical quality in the quantitative terms that buyer models require, rather than presenting qualitative clinical narratives that buyers discount because they cannot verify them.

Technology as a Valuation Driver: What Buyers Are Looking For

The technology dimension of Matz’s thesis reflects a market reality that has been building since the first generation of ABA-specific practice management software platforms — CentralReach, Catalyst, Motivity, and their competitors — achieved broad adoption in the ABA market. The presence of modern practice management software in a practice is now a baseline expectation rather than a premium differentiator. What creates premium value in the technology dimension is how the practice uses its technology: whether it captures data systematically, analyzes that data to inform clinical decision-making, and generates the outcomes reporting that value-based contracts and sophisticated buyers require.

Buyers who are building ABA platforms for the value-based care environment are making acquisition decisions that account for technology integration costs as well as transaction prices. A practice with legacy or fragmented technology systems that will require significant post-closing investment to bring to platform standards is priced at a discount to reflect those integration costs. A practice with current, integrated technology systems that align with the acquiring platform’s infrastructure requires minimal integration investment and can be onboarded more quickly into the buyer’s clinical quality measurement and reporting infrastructure.

The AI-assisted clinical tools that are beginning to enter the ABA market — systems that assist with functional behavior assessment, treatment plan recommendations, and session data analysis — represent the next generation of technology differentiation. Practices that are piloting these tools and developing organizational competency in their use are building a technology edge that will be valued by buyers who are thinking about platform-scale deployment of AI-assisted clinical tools. This is a 2026–2028 valuation driver rather than a current premium, but advisors like Matz who are thinking about the market’s trajectory are pointing toward the technology investments that will matter most over the next transaction cycle.

Data room preparation for technology-forward buyers: ABA sellers who are positioning their practices as technology-forward operations should ensure that their data room preparation includes documentation of their technology infrastructure: the specific software platforms in use, the outcome data they capture, the reporting they generate for payers and internal quality management, and the integration architecture that connects their clinical and operational data. This documentation gives buyers the evidence base for the technology premium valuation rather than requiring them to accept qualitative assertions about the practice’s data capabilities.

B. Riley Securities and the Behavioral Health Advisory Market

B. Riley Securities’ presence in the behavioral health M&A advisory market reflects the convergence of the firm’s middle market investment banking capabilities with the specific market dynamics that Matz has articulated. The ABA market’s transition toward value-based care and technology-enabled delivery creates a more complex advisory environment than a straightforward multiple-of-revenue deal market, and advisors who understand the specific value drivers that buyers are modeling — reimbursement innovation participation, technology infrastructure quality, clinical outcome metrics — are better positioned to maximize value for sellers than those who do not.

The trade publication recognition of B. Riley Securities and Ben Matz specifically in Behavioral Health Business coverage is a marker of genuine market engagement. In a market where dozens of investment banks claim healthcare services coverage, the firms whose bankers are quoted by name in trade publications discussing specific market dynamics have demonstrated the sector knowledge and relationship depth that substantive market coverage requires.

For ABA practice owners and platform operators who are thinking about M&A in the context that Matz describes — a market being transformed by reimbursement innovation and technology — engaging with B. Riley Securities during the pre-process advisory phase is worth considering. Understanding the market thesis that sophisticated buyers are applying to ABA valuations is valuable intelligence regardless of whether B. Riley Securities ultimately advises the transaction.

AT A GLANCE

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