Deals & People October 2, 2024

Wealth Enhancement Group Acquires FinTrust Capital Advisors

The acquisition brings Wealth Enhancement Group’s assets under management to more than $94.7 billion. 

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Wealth Enhancement Group, an independent wealth management firm with more than $94.7 billion in client assets, announced a further expansion of its wealth management and workplace plan advisement footprint.

WEG announced Wednesday the acquisition of FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC, which oversees more than $2.39 billion in client assets, including retirement plan advisement and services.

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Founded in 2007, FinTrust Capital Advisors is a hybrid registered investment advisory headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, headed by CIO Allen Gillespie and including a team of 14 advisers and 13 support staff. The firm has additional office locations in Anderson, South Carolina, and Athens, Georgia. 

In addition to individual and family wealth management, FinTrust Capital Advisors offers a range of defined contribution and defined benefit plan advisement services, primarily for corporate and institutional clients. The firm provides fiduciary consulting and retirement plan consulting, focusing on helping companies of various sizes manage their employee retirement programs.

The firm’s services include advising on investment strategies, plan design and ongoing compliance to ensure that retirement benefits are optimized for both employers and employees.

“Our firm was built on the premise that the best wealth management advice combines investment management guidance, advanced financial planning, and tax strategies with strong client relationships,” Gillespie said in a statement. “Joining Wealth Enhancement Group allows us to strengthen that promise by tapping into their robust network of central services.” 

FinTrust’s services expand WEG’s institutional client offerings, particularly in retirement planning and fiduciary consulting. The acquisition also enhances WEG’s portfolio by adding expertise in managing complex retirement plans. 

 WEG has been expanding its client base in plan advisement in the last several years, recently reporting about $5 billion in retirement plan assets in retirement plan coverage. Wealth Enhancement Group’s acquisitions in 2024 include Gavin Financial Group in June, Peak Financial Management in July and Levy Wealth Management in September. The firm did not immediately respond to break down how much of its asset base is in retirement plans. 

Park Sutton Advisors, a Waller Helms company, served as the exclusive financial adviser to FinTrust Capital Advisors. 

Compliance October 2, 2024

TIAA Swept Up in Infosys Breach

The data breach affected nearly 9,000 individuals at TIAA.

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TIAA and TIAA Life, the life insurance arm of the retirement and investment provider, were swept up in a data breach that hit other providers, including T. Rowe Price and Vanguard, last year.

The breach reached 8,977 individuals in TIAA’s system, including 81 residents of Maine, according to a September 27 filing with the office of the Maine Attorney General. The breach was part of the hacking of Infosys McCamish Systems LLC, which occurred on October 29, 2023, and was discovered by the company just days later, on November 2, 2023.

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“Infosys McCamish Systems notified TIAA that some TIAA and TIAA Life retail customers (not institutional plan participants) were impacted during McCamish’s November 2023 cybersecurity incident,” a TIAA spokesperson wrote in an email to PLANADVISER. “There was no involvement whatsoever of TIAA’s systems or recordkeeping platform. We have alerted those affected customers and IMS has secured Kroll’s services to provide identity monitoring services at no cost to them. Data security remains a top priority at TIAA.”

TIAA’s inclusion in the data breach further emphasizes the ripple effect an attack on a third-party provider can have. In 2023, a breach at data vendor MOVEit, owned by Progress Software Corp., exposed the data of some of the country’s largest recordkeepers, as well as university and state-run pension programs.

In last year’s breach, Infosys suffered hacking that impacted T. Rowe Price Retirement Plan Services and several other vendor clients, according to a notification filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General on September 11, amending a June 27 filing.

The TIAA breach notification, submitted by Lou Senay, managing director of supervisory affairs at TIAA, to Maine’s attorney general, outlined that sensitive personal information such as names and other personal identifiers had been compromised. Although the full scope of the compromised data was not detailed, it was confirmed that the breach involved a system hack, heightening concerns over the protection of financial and personal information.

TIAA has notified those affected and is offering protection services to help safeguard against identity theft and other potential misuse of the breached information. For now, the breach affected fewer than 1,000 residents of Maine, so consumer reporting agencies have not been alerted.

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