Deals & People November 30, 2021

Creative Planning Acquires Dashboard Wealth Advisors

This is Creative Planning’s second recent deal, underscoring how adviser industry M&A volume continues at a rapid pace.

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Creative Planning Inc. has announced the acquisition of Dashboard Wealth Advisors, which was founded in 2013 by Scott Schuster and has more than $800 million in assets under management (AUM).

Earlier this month, Creative Planning announced a deal with Lockton to combine forces, with the goal of creating a “best-in-class advisory offering designed to serve corporate retirement plans and the plans’ participants.” The partnership, named “Lockton Retirement Services, an Offering of Creative Planning,” seeks to help clients create more value for their people through personal retirement, estate planning, legal, tax and other advice resources. 

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The new deal between Creative Planning and Dashboard is in line with overall industry merger and acquisition (M&A) trends that show deal volume has hit another record high. A third quarter 2021 analysis by Echelon shows large strategic acquirers, many of which are backed by private equity firms, maintained their status as the most active dealmakers in the wealth management and advisory industry.

Echelon researchers expect the number of 2021 deals to outpace the total 2020 deal count by a significant margin. Prospective tax code changes might have helped fuel the new record quarter, which saw 78 deals announced. The previous record was 76 deals, set in the first quarter of this year. Echelon researchers point to strong secular trends buoying the M&A activity, such as overall financial services industry consolidation, growing competition and a need for broader succession planning.

Adding fuel to the fire are supportive capital markets, cheap debt and heightened corporate cash balances—as well as the “transitory trend” related to potential changes in tax rates that could be included in the federal budget legislation making its way through Congress.

Data & Research November 30, 2021

People More Open to Seeking Adviser Help With Overall Financial Wellness

Older generations are more frequently seeking help with cash and debt management.

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Recent research shows that people of all ages are seeking more help with financial wellness and retirement savings and planning, and many are interested in financial wellness help from financial advisers.

EY Navigate, a financial wellness service provided by EY to help employees with retirement planning and more, recently gathered data on the trends and needs of the more than 8,000 Fortune 500 employees who interact with the service. It found that use of the EY Navigator website and mobile application increased 47% from 51,000 visits pre-pandemic to 75,000 visits during the pandemic.

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Specifically, across all ages, the number of times each topic was discussed by those calling the EY Navigate Planner Line pre-pandemic versus during the pandemic increased 35% for cash and debt, 31% for retirement accumulation, 28.5% for employer retirement plan rules and 21% for retirement distributions.

Calls to the EY Navigate Planner Line from Generation Z and Millennial employees far outpaced those from older age groups, by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. However, interestingly, the number of cash and debt calls from Baby Boomers ages 57 to 66 saw the biggest percent increase, at 77% from pre-pandemic to pandemic.

In another potentially unexpected finding, the biggest spike in retirement accumulation calls was in the same Boomers age group. EY planners say this reflects those employees putting a renewed and urgent focus on accumulating enough wealth to retire, or to be able to retire, as soon as it may become necessary. In addition, retirement distribution discussions spiked the most (46.5%) among the Generation X group (ages 41 to 56). EY planners say this reflects a renewed focus on retirement readiness, return-to-work hesitancy and those considering a much earlier retirement due to the pandemic.

EY says employees who worked with a financial planner by phone during the pandemic were much more engaged, with significant increases in the number of discussions on cash and debt management, retirement accumulations and distributions, and retirement plan rules. This indicates that those users called their planners much more often over the course of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, nine in 10 Americans surveyed by Fidelity’s eMoney Advisor indicated they are receptive to financial wellness discussions with advisers. More than 86% seek an adviser to grow their wealth and 85% seek an adviser to achieve financial peace of mind.

The research found 31% of respondents said difficulty getting sound advice was a hindrance in their financial wellness mission. Eighty-six percent of survey participants said they would select an adviser based on whether the adviser took the time to customize and understand their needs and goals, and 84% said they would select an adviser based on the adviser’s advice and methods and how the practice aligned with the employee’s overall goals.

More than one-third (34%) of survey participants said the inability to view their finances in one place was an obstacle in their quest to achieving financial wellness.

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