Advisory M&A News – 2/5/24

Mariner Wealth Adds $104B in Institutional AUA; Heffernan makes Florida acquisition; OneDigital adds WealthSource with advisers in 9 states; and more.

Mariner Wealth to Acquire 2 Firms to Bolster Institutional Presence

Wealth advisement firm Mariner Wealth Advisors will acquire Winter Park, Florida-based AndCo Consulting and Covington, Kentucky-based Fourth Street Performance Partners in a simultaneous transaction adding 100 employees and bringing in $104 billion in assets under advisement.

The deal will “significantly bolster” Overland Park, Kansas-based Mariner’s institutional advisement presence in such areas as defined contribution and defined benefit, as it has recognized “the evolving landscape of retirement-to-wealth solutions,” according to the announcement. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed; the deal is expected to be completed by April.

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

The AndCo team will lead a new business vertical, Mariner Institutional, which will contribute to the firm’s advisement of both institutional and individual clients. Fourth Street will merge with AndCo after the close, with each maintaining existing teams and service of institutional clients under the Mariner Institutional brand.

“The complementary nature of our clients and services will support our joint growth and offer existing clients and prospects additional services that will help enhance the overall client outcome,” Marty Bicknell, CEO and president of Mariner Wealth Advisors, said in a statement.

The agreements were finalized on January 29, with Berkshire Global Advisors serving as financial adviser to AndCo Consulting. AndCo and Fourth Street will continue serving clients out of their locations in Covington, Winter Park, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Reno, Nevada.

Heffernan Acquires First Coast Wealth Advisors

Heffernan Insurance Brokers and Heffernan Financial Services have established their first presence in Florida with the acquisition of First Coast Wealth Advisors in St. Augustine.

First Coast Founder and CEO Jeff Helms and his team joined Heffernan Financial Services, effective January 1. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Helms has worked in the financial services industry for nearly 40 years, joining First Coast Wealth Advisors in 2003 and holding multiple leadership roles.

First Coast Wealth Advisors offers financial planning with consultative services, including investment strategy, tax mitigation, wealth transfer, asset preservation and charitable planning.

“With the addition of the First Coast wealth advisory team, we now have bicoastal expertise that includes team members who hold the prestigious designations of CFA and CFP,” Blake Thibault, president of Heffernan Financial Services, said in a statement. 

Heffernan’s companies include Heffernan Retirement Services, a full-service financial services firm that offers strategies and solutions for corporations, foundations and individuals. The firm is both vendor and investment neutral.

OneDigital Adds Wealth Management Firm Working in 9 States

OneDigital Investment Advisors, a wholly owned subsidiary of OneDigital, announced the addition of WealthSource Partners, bringing $2 billion in wealth management advisory assets to OneDigital’s $100 billion in assets under management.

WealthSource is a financial services company offering financial planning, investment management and insurance solutions. The 44-person team works with about 2,000 client families and brings more than 25 years of financial and M&A experience in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

The firm was founded in 2016 by Bryan Sullivan of Vellum Financial and Eric Patton and Jon Dubravac of Avant-Garde Advisors when they combined their firms.

“We’re delighted to welcome the WealthSource team and weave their valuable expertise into our robust team of dedicated financial advisers,” Vincent Morris, president of retirement and wealth for OneDigital, said in a statement. “The wealth management industry is highly complex and demanding and, together with WealthSource, we will meet the increasing challenges with our depth of knowledge and mutual desire to put our clients’ needs first.”
 
Atlanta-based OneDigital is an insurance brokerage, financial services and HR consulting firm with more than 75,000 employees.

Carson’s $180M Partnership Starts Eastern Expansion Plans 

Carson Wealth is expanding into the East with the addition of offices in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Chester, Vermont, through a strategic partnership with Fisher Financial Advisors, which will be rebranded as Carson Wealth.

The offices will be Carson Wealth’s first in both states, which the Omaha, Nebraska-based firm intends to show its “commitment to extending its reach and impact.”

“Carson will be instrumental in elevating our client experience,” Tim Fisher, managing director and Wealth Advisor of Fisher Financial Advisors, said in a statement. “As we’ve grown, the need for additional expertise became apparent, and Carson’s expansive resources can help fill a lot of buckets for us, like portfolio management and tax and estate planning.”

The firm is also led by Fisher’s son, Nate Fisher, who noted in a statement that: “Succession planning was also a paramount consideration for us. We wanted not only to sustain our growth, but to continue expanding.”

The deal is Carson Group’s first of 2024, with FP Transitions serving as the M&A adviser for Fisher Financial Advisors.

PGIM Unveils Retirement Confidence Index

The RetireWell Confidence Index ranks worker responses on a scale of six confidence levels.

PGIM announced the launch of a new retirement confidence index on Monday that allows plan fiduciaries to access the financial and retirement confidence of some 300,000 U.S. workers.

The RetireWell Confidence Index is built from a dataset with responses from workers who have taken an online financial wellness assessment, and index interprets results on a scale of six confidence levels: very high; high; above average; below average; low; and very low.

“The index is an aggregation of the responses over time, where it removes any of the effects related to things like income, [because] individuals who have higher incomes are much more confident,” says David Blanchett, the head of retirement research at PGIM DC Solutions.

Want the latest retirement plan adviser news and insights? Sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters.

The index controls for the demographic factors related to confidence, including age, income, gender and marital status, says Blanchett, who helped to conceive of and supported developing the index.

Although individual sponsors are not able to access data specific to their plans, using the data may inform “a plan sponsor [regarding] how their participants are feeling about retirement versus national averages,” Blanchett says. “This [dataset is] trying to capture things that you wouldn’t normally get from the traditional quarterly report that shows you how your participant balances have changed over time.”

The current question used to estimate financial confidence asks respondents, “Overall, how are you feeling about your finances?” The corresponding four possible responses are: Stressed; OK; Confident; and I’m not sure, according to PGIM.

For retirement confidence, PGIM asks, “Do you think you’ll have enough savings for the retirement you want?” The three potential responses are: “Yes, I think I’ll have enough”; “I don’t think so, but I’m trying!”; and “I’m not sure.”

PGIM’s current retirement confidence index data is as of December 31, 2023.

In the most updated data sagging participant retirement confidence shows the overall confidence grade is “below average,” identical to the previous quarter and the same as one year ago.

Three years ago confidence levels were above average and five years ago the index grade was also below average, according to PGIM.

“As the markets have rallied [in 2024], and if the markets keep going up, I would imagine we’d see more and more improvements over time,” to retirement confidence, Blanchett says. “The perceptions of risk are changing a little bit, where people are more concerned about things like inflation than they have been historically.”

Data for the PGIM RetireWell Confidence Index is based on responses to an online financial wellness assessment offered by Prudential Financial since April 20, 2017. The questionnaire consists of approximately 25 questions, and more than 300,000 responses have been collected across three different versions since it was introduced. Historically, the assessment was primarily accessed by individuals either through Prudential’s recordkeeping platform or group benefits services.

«