Deals & People July 28, 2023

Retirement Industry People Moves

AdvicePay names Suaickie CEO as Moore shifts to board; Plan Sponsor University brings on Kelleher as consultant; Ascensus names retirement sales regional VPs; and more.

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AdvicePay Names Alex Sauickie CEO

Alex Sauickie.

Processing payments and fee-for-service financial planning firm AdvicePay has named Alex Sauickie as CEO, succeeding co-founder Alan Moore, who will transition to be executive chairman of the company’s board. Michael Kitces, who runs financial planning industry site Kitces.com, will remain in his current role as a co-founder of the firm.

Sauickie takes the position after roles that include global head of wealth and retirement services at Fidelity National Information Services Inc., president and CEO of CircleBlack and leadership positions at payment experience firms Paytrust and Billtrust.

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Sauickie will draw on his experience in leading and scaling financial technology companies in support of registered investment advisers, broker/dealers and large financial institutions to lead AdvicePay, according to the firm.

“AdvicePay’s culture and commitment to excellence, talented team, and unwavering dedication to innovation has set it apart as an industry leader,” Sauickie said in a statement. “I am committed to building upon the strong foundation established by Alan and Michael and look forward to working closely with the team and leveraging our collective strengths to achieve even greater milestones together to bring the growing trend of fee-for-service to more advisers and enterprise institutions.”

AdvicePay has seen 123% growth in advisers being added to the platform in the past two years, 153% growth in transaction volume and a 141% boost in annual recurring revenue, according to the announcement.

Plan Sponsor University Names Kelleher to Vet Plan Advisers

Andy Kelleher.

The Plan Sponsor University hired Andy Kelleher as a senior account executive, helping plan sponsors conduct fiduciary due diligence on retirement plan advisers.

The Plan Sponsor University offers services to support examining retirement plan benchmarking, requests for information and requests for proposals, Fred Barstein, founder and CEO, wrote via email.

“ERISA [The Employee Retirement Income Security Act] requires plan fiduciaries to make sure that all vendors paid out of plan assets are qualified and that their fees are reasonable,” Barstein says. Plan sponsors “rely on their adviser or consultant to perform due diligence on investments [and] their recordkeeper. That same principle applies to their adviser or consultant, yet, obviously, they cannot conduct due diligence on themselves.”

Kelleher reports to Barstein. Kelleher has worked in the retirement services industry for 35 years, with stops at MassMutual, Fidelity Investments and TIAA.

Ascensus Appoints Retirement Sales Leads in Northern Texas, Pacific Northwest

Ben Buehler.

Ascensus LLC has appointed Ben Buehler and Trent Schrader as regional vice presidents for retirement sales.

Buehler will provide product sales and services coverage for Ascensus the Northern Texas; Schrader is responsible for the Pacific Northwest region, , according to the Dresher, Pennsylvania-based firm.

Both vice presidents will report to Lori Zeman, the Ascensus western division vice president.

Buehler joined Ascensus in 2022, most recently serving as an internal sales consultant. He was previously a senior regional sales consultant at PCS Retirement.

Trent Schrader.

Schrader joined Ascensus in 2021, most recently serving as an internal sales consultant. Before that role, he was a regional sales consultant at CUNA Mutual Retirement.

“I’m proud to be able to promote such strong talent from within to further support our partners and their clients,” Jason Crane, head of retirement distribution at Ascensus, said in a statement. “Both Trent and Ben already have outstanding reputations and a track record of excellence at Ascensus and I’m excited to see that continue to flourish.”

Federated Hermes Promotes Marzula

Diane Marzula.

Investment manager Federated Hermes Inc. has promoted Diane Marzula to senior vice president and manager for global accounts.

Marzula will lead the global accounts team to deliver resources and strategies sought by Federated Hermes’ largest clients, according to the announcement. She will report to Bryan Burke, director of strategic solutions.

Marzula has been director of the firm’s 75-member client engagement center since 1996, during which time she promoted more than 95 internal sales team members to the company’s external sales team and spearheaded the implementation of a new customer relationship management tool, according to the firm.

“Diane’s extensive sales leadership and business development experience made her an ideal choice to lead the company’s global accounts efforts,” Paul Uhlman, president of Federated Securities Corp., said in a statement. “Diane will work closely with the home offices to customize solutions and best meet their evolving investment needs.”

Fiduciary Trust Names Emily Guadagnoli Head of Marketing

Emily Guadagnoli.

Wealth manager Fiduciary Trust International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton, has promote Emily Guadagnoli to head of marketing.

Guadagnoli takes the position after working as the marketing director for advisory solutions for the firm, responsible for investment marketing strategy. In her new role, she will work with senior leadership to align marketing efforts with overall business goals, according to the firm.

“Emily has two decades of experience as a marketing, media relations, and corporate communications professional, and she has proven herself a valued member of our team,” Gene Todd, executive vice president and head of regional markets at Fiduciary Trust International, said in a statement. “Her expertise will help us continue to drive growth, deepen client relationships, as well as standout as an industry leader and trusted advisor within the wealth management space.”

Guadagnoli joined Fiduciary Trust in 2020 when it acquired Athena Capital Advisors, where she was director of marketing. She also served as vice president of communications at Harvard Management Co., where she was responsible for developing and implementing internal and external communication strategies.

 

Deals & People July 28, 2023

MarshBerry: Retirement M&A Up in First Half, Bucking Overall Trend

Of the 18 retirement deals through the first half of 2023, 2 came from wealth advisories ‘dipping their toes’ in retirement waters, the consultancy notes.

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As it turns out, the highly consolidated retirement plan advisement space still has room to run, even in the face of high interest rates and market uncertainty, according to a mid-year mergers and acquisitions wealth advisory update from MarshBerry.

Retirement-related transactions were up 20% year-over-year through June, an increase to 18 deals as compared with 15 last year, according to the consulting firm’s “M&A Trends” report. The dealmaking happened even as the generally more active consolidation among wealth management advisories has “levelized,” in part due to the impact of higher capital costs and access to debt financing, MarshBerry wrote.

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When looking at total dealmaking, the consultancy reported an 11% year-on-year drop to 136 transactions. That depressed dealmaking mimics recent reports by other consultancies, including a report issued recently by DeVoe and Co. declaring the biggest drop in retirement investment advisory dealmaking in nine years.

According to MarshBerry, the majority of retirement deal activity was done by insurance brokerages looking to add to their employee benefit offerings, including aggregators OneDigital, NFP Corp. and Hub International Ltd.

But in a new trend in what MarshBerry called “non-traditional” acquirers, wealth managers Carson Group and Savant Wealth Management took things in the other direction, acquiring retirement-focused firms to add to their workplace and individual retirement plan advisement capabilities. There was also a 2022 deal in which MAI Capital Management LCC acquired West Point Business Group to add specialized retirement plan consulting, launching MAI Retirement, and Merit Financial Advisors acquired Allegiance Retirement Solutions Inc. in the same year.

“When you think about how high-net-worth, or even ultra-high-net-worth family offices, service their clients, they are providing a lot of executive services like executive education, executive compensation plans and sometimes even advising business owner on transactions,” says Rob Madore, a vice president at MarshBerry. “It makes a lot of sense to connect over to the retirement world and acquire businesses that have 100, 200 or 500 retirement plans, which means, at a minimum, 100, 200 or 500 executives—and typically, their closely held businesses.”

Sticky Business

Madore says the margins and “stickiness” of business is better in wealth management and private client services than it is in retirement consulting. But if a wealth manager can bridge the gap between the two, there are many business benefits that are driving a longer-term shift in wealth management practices.

“The overall wealth management industry over the next 10 years is going to change pretty drastically, not just from a succession perspective, but from the overall wealth transfer across the country,” he says. “Being able to reach into those retirement plans and service employees at a deeper level, where you become the brand long before they have the assets, it positions you really well as they flow from the Baby Boomers down to the Millennials.”

Madore equates the shift to the large wirehouses from more than 30 years ago, who ignored smaller accounts with the assumption they would return for services when they were larger. Instead, he notes, independent RIAs emerged to serve those plans and increased in size and competitive advantage over the years.

The insurance brokerage firms active in retirement dealmaking also continued their push into wealth advisories, according to MarshBerry. Of the insurance firms engaged in dealmaking, 70% offer wealth advisory services alongside retirement plan advisement and, according to the researchers, are in a better position than those firms only focused on retirement.

This group of acquirers [with both retirement and wealth] has a meaningful head–start with developed and proven strategies for acquiring and integrating wealth firms into their core businesses,” the consultants wrote. “Others are playing catch-up or still sitting on the sidelines waiting to make their play.”

PE Still Here

Private equity is also staying active in acquisitions, according to the consultancy. PE backed 65% of all the wealth advisory transactions in the first half of the year, as firms look to capture the recurring revenue and high retention of wealth advisories. Even with tight credit markets, these firms tend to have access to debt capital, according to MarshBerry.

“Private equity is primarily interested in finding an area where they can follow a formula to create value,” Madore notes. “The RIA and retirement consulting industries have a few attractive components: consistent, fee-based revenue that scales as a firm grows; strong asset growth; a generally fragmented industry presenting a large inorganic growth opportunity; and the ability to create major growth or synergies within acquired businesses.”

Overall, MarshBerry expects dealmaking to continue into 2023, if at a bit more tentative pace as compared to prior years.

“While the leaderboard has changed, you still see a lot of the same familiar names,” Madore says. “I would not expect that to change drastically in the future. But it is worth noting that, over time, as these businesses scale, they are becoming a little pickier about the type of businesses they are acquiring, and they are becoming more selective on where these businesses are.”

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