Global Retirement Partners, LLC (GRP) and Strategic Retirement Partners (SRP) announced on Monday, April 1st, a strategic partnership designed to leverage their respective company’s core competencies and create industry leading scale. This transaction will add 17 SRP offices with $10B AUM to GRP, LPL’s largest retirement plan focused hybrid RIA, with nearly $40B in AUM. This partnership will bring together two of the industry’s premier thought leaders and innovators. SRP will gain access to GRP’s cutting‐edge products and services, compliance expertise, and back office support. GRP advisors will have the ability to leverage SRP’s innovative Plan Advisor practice management platform and advisorcentric technology. SRP’s business model empowers advisors to focus on clients and growing their practices while the SRP team streamlines mandatory business functions.
Hailing the partnership as industry changing, GRP CEO Geoff White explains, “As margins continue to compress, and increased complexity becomes the new normal in the plan space, we know advisors are looking for much more from their RIA. They are looking for size and scale to obtain pricing efficiencies across products and technologies. They are looking for robust and differentiating solutions to identify new opportunities and revenue streams. Most importantly, they are looking for the technology and support that will allow them to streamline their office operations so they can spend more of their time winning business. This strategic partnership supplies that and much more. It’s a game changer.” White further adds “I have known Jeff Cullen for many years and have always been a big fan of him and what, under his leadership, SRP has built‐ our core values could not align better. Together, I have no doubt that we can really move the needle in this industry and take it to the next level. We’re very excited.”
SRP Managing Partner Jeff Cullen also sees this union as having a huge impact on the industry. “This is a small industry where the major players all know each other. In exploring our strategic partnership options, we were looking for a relationship where 1+1 could equal 3 for our clients, advisors, and the industry more broadly. We’ve always placed a high value on intellectual capital and values alignment and this partnership has it in abundance. Together, there’s no advisor’s practice or firm that we can’t aim to accommodate, improve upon, provide potential for better participant outcomes, and provide succession for the advisor. The experienced advisors and executive teams that make up the ownership and membership of these two entities are skilled and special. In our discussions, everything begins and ends with creating a better and more dignified retirement for America’s workers. That’s our North Star; taking care of people. We are confident that together, SRP and GRP, can fulfill that mission as well or better than any firm in our industry, and we intend to prove it.”
SRP officially registered with GRP on April 1st, 2019. Combined, the companies retain nearly $50 Billion in AUA, over 4,200 plan clients, making GRP one of the largest aggregators in the industry. But size and scale weren’t the only factors in deciding to partner, both firms were adamant that there was a cultural fit. SRP COO Deane Mayerhofer explains, “It was vital to both SRP and GRP that we were culturally compatible. It was a deal breaker for us. We spent a great deal of time together, both professionally and socially, exploring our respective cultures and evaluating how they would mesh. In the end, it was apparent to both groups that it was a perfect fit.”
About GRP
Global Retirement Partners is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor with 236 advisors in 125 offices nationwide. Headquartered in San Rafael, CA and known for industry thought leadership, GRP was established as Financial Telesis (FTI) in 1992 and became GRP in 2014 when FTI was acquired by a group of industry leading plan advisors. GRP maintains corporate offices in San Rafael and Carlsbad, CA.
About SRP
Strategic Retirement Partners is a nationwide independent retirement plan consulting services firm dedicated to providing guidance in decision‐making and problem solving to employers and sponsors of retirement plans. With offices from coast to coast, Strategic Retirement Partners currently consults on over 700 corporate and non‐profit plans and $10 billion in assets as of April 1, 2019.
Cosmo Gould, Geoff White and Jeff Cullen are registered representatives with LPL Financial. Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services are offered through Global Retirement Partners, LLC, an SEC registered Investment Advisor. Global Retirement Partners, LLC and Strategic Retirement Partners (SRP) are separate entities from LPL Financial. Global Retirement Partners, LLC employs (or contracts with) individuals who may be (1) registered representatives of LPL Financial and investment advisor representatives of Global Retirement Partners, LLC, or (2) solely investment advisor representatives of Global Retirement Partners, LLC. Although all personnel operate their businesses under the name Strategic Retirement Partners (SRP), they are each possibly subject to differing obligations and limitations and may be able to provide differing products or services.