Cetera Financial Group has announced an agreement to acquire Concourse Financial Group Securities, the wealth management division of Protective Life, an insurance company.
The acquisition is set to bring approximately 350 financial advisors managing over $12 billion in client assets under Cetera’s umbrella. While the financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, Cetera anticipates closing the transaction in the first quarter of 2025, pending regulatory approval.
This deal is part of Cetera’s ongoing strategy to expand its footprint. The San Diego-based firm has successfully completed several acquisitions in recent years, bolstering its advisor count and assets under administration. As of June 30, Cetera boasted a network of around 12,000 advisors overseeing more than $521 billion in assets.
Mike Durbin, CEO of Cetera Holdings, the parent company of Cetera Financial Group, highlights that Concourse is a natural fit for Cetera, in part due to Cetera's expertise in integrating wealth management units from insurance companies. This acquisition follows similar transactions, including Cetera's 2023 acquisition of Securian Financial Group's retail wealth business, which brought in an additional $50 billion in assets, and the 2021 purchase of Voya Financial Advisors’ independent financial-planning channel, which added approximately $37 billion in assets.
Durbin emphasizes that Cetera’s experience in acquisitions ensures minimal disruption for incoming advisors. “Our focus is on making these transitions as seamless as possible, allowing advisors to quickly return to focusing on growth,” he says.
This operational expertise is a key reason Protective Life chose Cetera as the buyer for Concourse, according to Aaron Seurkamp, president of Protective’s Protection & Retirement Division. "This transaction allows Protective to concentrate on its core life insurance and annuity businesses while enabling Concourse’s financial professionals to leverage Cetera’s leading resources and advisor support," Seurkamp explains in a statement.
Concourse, headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., will operate under Cetera Wealth Partners, one of the company’s five advisor communities. Each of Cetera’s communities groups like-minded advisors, such as those in its tax channel, which is designed for advisors specializing in tax planning. This structure is part of what makes Cetera attractive to Concourse, says Libet Anderson, president of Concourse Financial Group. “Cetera’s community model and proven succession planning solutions align well with our strategic objectives,” Anderson notes.
Cetera’s resources and open-architecture platform will be available to Concourse’s advisors, offering them expanded capabilities. Durbin highlights that Cetera also operates an insurance brokerage, providing advisors access to multiple insurance providers. “Many of our advisors began their careers by focusing on insurance, eventually expanding into wealth management. For a lot of households, their first major financial investment is life insurance, which helps advisors build early client relationships,” Durbin explains.
Protective Life’s decision to sell Concourse reflects a broader trend among insurance companies to divest wealth management divisions or outsource back-office operations. Rising regulatory and technology costs are making it more expensive to maintain brokerages. The independent broker-dealer space has also seen significant consolidation in recent years as firms pursue greater scale to offset these rising costs.
