Mariner Announces Financial Wellness Platform Following Spring Acquisition
The wealth manager will now provide employers with a wellness platform that connects back to their wealth adviser services.
Mariner Wealth Advisors announced Wednesday its January acquisition of Spring, a financial wellness benefits provider, and the launch of Mariner Financial Wellness to provide holistic financial guidance in addition to retirement planning.
The rebranded entity includes an online portal that offers customized educational content, budgeting tools, goal-setting and other resources, according to the announcement. Individuals can find personalized financial wellness coaching from a licensed professional. Additionally, businesses are able to see data-driven insights drawn from employees’ financial concerns, showing results such as declining debt and increasing savings, according to Overland Park, Kansas-based Mariner Wealth Advisors.
The financial wellness tool will be provided directly to employees from client businesses and will not involve advisers from the Mariner team in terms of the advice offering, a spokesperson from Mariner said by email. The service will, however, pair with the firm’s retirement plan solutions and wealth advice for executives to “not only help participants save for their future retirement, but then provide them one-on-one, holistic wealth advice too,” according to the spokesperson.
“[Mariner Financial Wellness] pairs nicely with a company’s 401(k) initiative to create, manage and expand their employer-sponsored 401(k) plan,” the spokesperson wrote. “In our experience, we have found that employees who participate in their company’s 401(k) also want wealth advice to ensure they are planning for retirement in a way that will help them reach their goals.”
The offering comes amid a push in the retirement industry to connect with participants through financial wellness offerings from advisory firms, as well as recordkeepers. On Wednesday, Smart USA Co., a retirement financial technology firm, acquired ProManage LLC, an independent financial wellness services provider that offers managed accounts and other personalized retirement solutions to plan sponsors and plan participants.
The new Mariner Financial Wellness will be available immediately to companies already receiving support on their employer-sponsored 401(k) plans from Mariner Wealth Advisors’ retirement plan solutions team, according to the firm. The deal with Chicago-based Spring, which closed in January 2023, is the first of its kind for Mariner Wealth Advisors.
“The integration of Spring will greatly complement our current retirement service offerings and will allow us to sustain that impact by making financial advice more accessible to employees across the country,” Marty Bicknell, CEO and president of Mariner Wealth Advisors, said in a statement.
Spring was founded in 2015 by former CEO Joe Holberg, who continues at Mariner Wealth Advisors as the managing director overseeing operations of Mariner Financial Wellness.
“Throughout the entire journey from the foundation of Holberg Financial in 2015, to its rebrand as Spring in 2021, and now to this next phase with Mariner Wealth Advisors, I have relentlessly focused on building and enhancing a platform that improves employees’ financial education and wellness,” Holberg said in a statement. “I’m thankful for the businesses that have been on this journey with us, and I am excited about the opportunities we will be able to share with them now that we are part of Mariner Wealth Advisors.”