Deals & People February 24, 2025

Great Gray Expands Retirement Business With RPAG Acquisition

The transaction will expand Great Gray’s presence in the retirement plan advisory market.

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Great Gray Trust Co. LLC, a provider of collective investment trust solutions, has acquired Retirement Plan Advisory Group, a 401(k) practice management platform serving retirement plan advisers.

The acquisition, reported on Wealthmanagement.com, expands Great Gray’s presence in the retirement plan advisory market, adding RPAG’s network of financial advisers and suite of technology-driven 401(k) optimization tools.

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RPAG, according to its website, has $1.6 trillion in assets under influence, serves 152,000 retirement plans and has 15 million plan participants. The firm is led by Vince Giovinazzo, its founder and CEO, and Nick Della Vedova, its president.

Madison Dearborn first entered retirement investing in December 2022, when it agreed to acquire Wilmington Trust’s CIT division. That acquisition, finalized on April 28, 2023, led to the formation of Great Gray Trust Co. LLC, the successor trustee to Wilmington Trust’s CIT business.

In 2013, Madison Dearborn acquired National Financial Partners in a transaction valued at $1.3 billion.

The companies involved did not respond to requests for comment.

On LinkedIn, Jesse Taylor, a senior vice president at RPAG, described the company’s evolution as: “From our early days as 401(k) Advisors and RPAG, to joining NFP Retirement for over a decade and launching flexPATH Strategies and PlanFees, to becoming independent in 2023, and now taking an exciting next step as part of the Great Gray Trust Company family … we’ve partnered with them for over a decade on RPAG’s exclusive CIT suite. Now with their support, we’re accelerating our ability to innovate—enhancing our technology, expanding our Advisor Service Team, and bringing even more value to our community.”

RPAG has long been a key player in the retirement advisory sector, providing investment research and compliance tools for advisers. The firm also co-founded flexPATH Strategies, a provider of target-date funds and managed investment solutions that many RPAG-affiliated advisers use in constructing client portfolios.

Compliance February 24, 2025

SEC Announces Unit to Protect Investors From Crypto, AI Scams

The Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit will be led by Laura D’Allaird, who was co-chief of the predecessor Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday the establishment of the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, which will seek “to protect retail investors from cryptocurrency scams and other bad actors in the emerging technologies space.”

The unit will be led by Laura D’Allaird, who was co-chief of the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, which is being replaced by the CETU, comprised of 30 fraud specialists and attorneys across multiple SEC offices.

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“The unit will not only protect investors but will also facilitate capital formation and market efficiency by clearing the way for innovation to grow. It will root out those seeking to misuse innovation to harm investors and diminish confidence in new technologies,” said Commissioner Mark Uyeda, acting chairman of the SEC, in a statement.

According to the SEC, the CETU will investigate fraud using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Its focus areas include fraud involving blockchain technology and cryptocurrency assets; the use of social media and false website to perpetrate fraud; hacking to obtain material nonpublic information; and public issuer fraudulent disclosure related to cybersecurity.

According to Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency research firm, in 2024, an estimated $40.9 billion in crypto assets were received by illicit addresses or crypto accounts tied to scammers, illicit actors and other entities. This figure was $11 billion in 2020 and reached a high of $54.3 billion in 2022.

Technology services firm ACA Global earlier this month warned in a report that hackers are increasingly using artificial intelligence to impersonate executives and other employees at financial services firms in order to get sensitive company information,

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