Cetera Launches Rescue Plan for Exiting Advisors
The new program aims to help advisors protect the value of their businesses during an ownership transition.
Cetera Financial Group says it will work to find buyers, finance deals or buy practices owned by advisors who have to leave the job due to an accident or other unforeseen problem.
The news comes about a month after Cetera, which has about 7,000-plus advisors, said it’s acquiring some broker-dealer and advisory-business assets from Foresters Financial, which has some 500 independent advisors.
Cetera’s Legacy Builder Program aims to “monetize the value of an advisor’s life’s work and provides financial stability through the client transition process to the next generation of owners,” the company explains. The program includes access to Truelytics’ online valuation platform.
“Having facilitated over 250 advisor practice acquisitions since 2015, Cetera has observed that the value of an advisory practice decreases by as much as 75% within the first 60 days of an unplanned exit, if no executable continuity plan is in place,” according to Richard Whitworth, head of Business Consulting for Cetera.
Cetera’s broker-dealer network includes Cetera Advisors, Cetera Advisor Networks, Cetera Financial Institutions, Cetera Financial Specialists, First Allied Securities and Summit Brokerage Services.
Reasons behind the need for the program, Whitworth said, include early-onset dementia, medical emergencies, car or other vehicle accidents and more: “While many advisors have personal and/or key man insurance in place to provide financial resources for a family upon death, Legacy Builder focuses on assisting advisors in protecting some of the value of the business during an ownership transition process.”
Cetera developed the program with members of its Advisor Engagement Council and Enterprise Action Committees, as well as with continuity and succession professionals.
“I truly believe Cetera has made real strides in raising advisor awareness of the issues related to legacy planning so that a financial advisor’s business is positioned to live on long after they do,” said Robert G. Federici, who is an attorney, a member of the Enterprise Action Committee and an advisor with Hudson Wealth Management.