Advisor Group's odyssey

Integration planning is a behind-the-scenes but hugely important function in the wealth management industry, a fragmented ecospace with many thousands of firms in which mergers, acquisitions and consolidations are a near-daily feature. 

So when Advisor Group, a large, independent wealth management firm, said recently it would meld its sprawling network of eight brokerages into one, it wasn’t just a reversal of the Phoenix-based firm’s longtime "multi-brand" strategy. It was also the declaration of a Herculean project to bring 10,500 financial advisors spread out from Miami to Minnesota and $490 billion in client assets under one roof.

Time to register for INVEST 2023, Financial Planning’s conference focused on getting the most out of your wealthtech.

The company has promised the transition will go as smoothly as possible for advisors, who can easily jump to rivals if the melding becomes messy or confusing.

If it all sounds opaque, it won’t be, if the coming together is to work. While the blending at Advisor is of internal components, it has a lot in common with a traditional merger. And as consulting firm EY says, the first responsibility in an M&A integration is to “define and determine the value drivers and guiding principles of the deal that supports the vision and integration strategy. “

And for that to happen, both the C suite and advisors need a “strong grasp of executive leadership’s priorities from the beginning."

Read more: Advisor Group's test: recruiting and retaining talent amid consolidation

In other news: