Half of Millennial Business Owners Work With a Retirement Adviser

This is true for only 43% of all business owners.

Half of Millennial business owners have a dedicated adviser helping them with retirement planning, compared to 43% of all business owners, a survey by Nationwide found. Twenty-three percent of Millennial business owners have identified a third party to sell their business in advance of retirement, compared to 10% of all business owners.

“It’s promising that Millennials are so focused on retirement and want to do more to prepare both themselves and their employees for retirement,” says John Carter, president of retirement plans for Nationwide. “Working with an adviser can help them achieve their personal and business goals.”

Sixty-nine percent of Millennial business owners say they are likely to offer retirement benefits to their employees in the future, compared to 36% of the average owner. Fifty-three percent say that having a retirement plan will help them with their own savings, while only 39% of Boomers say the same.

While 57% of Millennial business owners feel a responsibility to help their employees save for retirement, only 31% of Boomers and 44% of Gen Xers share this sentiment.

“Our research shows that Millennial business owners understand both the importance of saving for retirement and the need for workplace retirement benefits,” Carter says. “Millennials grew up during the Great Recession a decade ago, which significantly impacted how the generation spends, saves and manages their money and businesses. Now they are planning ahead and taking actions that could help them and their employees achieve financial security in retirement.”

Sixty-one percent of business owners expect better sales this year; this is true for 64% of Millennial business owners. Fifty-one percent of Millennial business owners think that offering a retirement plan could help attract and retain workers, particularly with unemployment so low. Only 44% of Gen Xers and 31% of Boomers think this is the case.

Forty-nine percent of all business owners say they will not change their retirement benefits due to tax reform. Eighteen percent say they will increase retirement contributions. Thirty-two percent of Millennial business owners are planning to do so. Twenty-five percent of Millennial business owners say that the tax reform has made it possible for them to offer a retirement plan, whereas only 19% of all business owners say the same.

“With the continued economic expansion tightening labor markets, it’s more important than ever for employers to offer comprehensive benefits like retirement plans,” Carter says. “Some of the most successful companies that we’ve worked with take an active role in encouraging their associates to plan for their future.”

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Edelman Intelligence conducted the online survey of 1,000 business owners for Nationwide in April.


Ladenburg Launches LIFT University Gender Diversity Program

The LIFT University program encourages women in college to learn about the financial adviser profession, connecting them with experienced mentors and recruiting opportunities. 

Ladenburg Thalmann, which owns and operates the advisory and brokerage subsidiaries Securities America, Triad Advisors, Investacorp, KMS Financial Services, and Securities Service Network, announced the launch of a new recruiting and training program aimed at developing more female advisers.

The program is known as LIFT University and is aimed at encouraging women in college to learn about and enter the financial adviser profession. The program was launched at the Ladenburg Institute of Women and Finance’s Annual Symposium.

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As the firm explains, the Ladenburg Institute of Women and Finance was established specifically to raise the representation of women advisers in the industry, and to help promote their professional success through business coaching, mentorship and the sharing of best practices between experienced female advisers.

According to Ladenburg, the first iteration of the program has already enabled 10 female college students with expressed interest in the field to meet with experienced female adviser mentors. The students and mentors will remain in contact to help guide the students towards future opportunities in the financial advice industry.

Moving forward, Ladenburg will be actively looking at colleges and universities with strong certified financial planner (CFP) programs as direct sources for new potential advisory talent, “rather than focusing solely on trying to recruit away younger advisers from the wirehouse or captive broker/dealer [B/D] space sometime after they have completed wirehouse/captive B/D training programs.”

Industry data shows fewer than one in five financial advisers in the U.S. are women. When one considers the professional fields that intersect with the financial and retirement advisory space the problem is thrown into sharper relief; fully 52% of accountants are women and 32% of attorneys are women.

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