Cetera Kept 91% Of Securian Advisors. The Deal Changed More Than Ownership.

Wealth Management

Aug 13

When Cetera Financial Group completed its acquisition of Securian Financial Group’s retail wealth and trust business in August 2023, one number mattered more than the size of the announcement.

More than 91% of the financial professionals invited to make the move chose Cetera.

That translated into nearly $50 billion in client assets, more than the roughly $47 billion cited when the transaction was announced in January. The advisors and their teams became Cetera Wealth Management Group, a distinct community inside what was then Cetera Advisor Networks.

The InvestmentNews report made clear why the retention number deserved attention. The deal had created an opening for competitors. By late July 2023, InvestmentNews data showed that 95 of Securian’s more than 1,000 advisors had already moved elsewhere, including to LPL Financial, Raymond James and StanCorp. Cetera therefore did not inherit the Securian advisor population automatically. It had to persuade practices to stay through an ownership transition they did not initiate.

But advisor retention is only the first layer of this transaction.

Securian did not simply sell a broker-dealer and walk away from wealth distribution. The original agreement included a strategic partnership under which Securian Financial would continue distributing individual life insurance and annuity products through Cetera-affiliated financial professionals. Cetera also acquired Securian Trust Company, renamed it Cetera Trust Company and later began positioning that business as a trust-services resource for advisors throughout the entire Cetera organization.

That makes the Securian transaction more interesting with several years of hindsight.

Cetera gained advisors, assets, employees, a national trust company and another large independent community. Securian reduced its direct exposure to operating a retail wealth platform while maintaining a commercial connection to financial professionals who could distribute its insurance products.

And Cetera did not stop there. The company later described Securian as part of a broader sequence of insurer-affiliated wealth acquisitions that included Foresters Financial, Voya Financial Advisors and eventually Concourse Financial Group Securities from Protective Life.

The transaction was therefore more than a $50 billion asset pickup.

It became a useful model for how an insurance company can separate wealth-platform ownership from product distribution, and how a consolidator can acquire an advisor network without immediately erasing the community that made the network valuable.

TL;DR

Cetera completed the Securian acquisition in August 2023: The transaction involved Securian Financial’s retail wealth and trust business.
Advisor retention cleared 91%: More than 91% of the invited financial professionals elected to join Cetera.
Nearly $50 billion came with them: That exceeded the roughly $47 billion in assets cited when the agreement was announced.
Competition was real during the transition: InvestmentNews reported that 95 Securian advisors had already left for firms including LPL, Raymond James and StanCorp by late July 2023.
The advisors received their own community: Securian professionals became Cetera Wealth Management Group instead of disappearing immediately into a generic Cetera structure.
Thirty independent firms made the transition more complicated: The original Securian business included more than 1,000 financial professionals working across more than 30 independent firms.
Securian retained a distribution relationship: Its individual life and annuity products could continue reaching Cetera-affiliated financial professionals under the strategic partnership.
Cetera also acquired a trust company: Securian Trust Company became Cetera Trust Company, giving Cetera fiduciary infrastructure that it later began expanding across its advisor ecosystem.
The transaction foreshadowed later deals: Cetera subsequently acquired another insurer-affiliated wealth business, Concourse Financial Group Securities from Protective Life.
The M&A lesson is broader than scale: Buying an advisor network only works if the buyer can retain advisors, preserve client relationships and make the new platform useful enough to justify the disruption.

The 91% Retention Rate Was The Deal’s First Real Verdict

An acquisition agreement can transfer assets, contracts, technology and ownership rights.

Advisor loyalty is different.

The original Securian transaction covered more than 1,000 financial professionals across more than 30 independent firms. Those practices represented $47.4 billion in assets under administration and $24.8 billion in assets under management as of Dec. 31, 2022. Cetera planned to organize them as Cetera Wealth Management Group.

That was the corporate plan.

The individual practices still had decisions to make.

InvestmentNews reported that 95 Securian advisors had left for other firms by late July, illustrating a basic vulnerability in broker-dealer M&A: the period between announcement and conversion gives competitors a recruiting opportunity.

An advisor who has spent years building a practice may have little emotional attachment to the buyer selected by the parent company. Once ownership changes, that advisor can use the disruption as an opportunity to reassess technology, payout, service, product access, compliance support, succession resources and the long-term direction of the business.

For Cetera, closing the transaction was therefore only part of the job.

Getting more than nine out of 10 invited financial professionals to come with it was the more meaningful operating achievement.

Competitors Had A Ready-Made Recruiting List

Acquisitions create unusually clear recruiting opportunities.

Normally, a recruiter has to convince an advisor that something about the existing platform is broken or that another firm offers a compelling reason to leave. An announced acquisition changes the conversation because the status quo is already disappearing.

The recruiter can ask a simpler question:

If your business is going to change anyway, why not decide for yourself where it goes next?

That can be especially effective when advisors worry about changes involving:

Technology: Whether existing systems, planning tools and workflows will survive the transition
Service: Whether a much larger organization will provide the same responsiveness
Economics: Whether payouts, fees or expenses will change
Product access: Whether the investment or insurance shelf will expand or narrow
Culture: Whether a local or relationship-driven organization will feel institutionalized
Supervision: Whether compliance expectations or approval processes will become more restrictive
Ownership: Whether succession, practice sales and acquisitions will work differently after the deal
Brand identity: Whether advisors can preserve the identity clients already know

The 95 departures reported before closing show that those conversations were not theoretical. Cetera was competing for the businesses it had agreed to acquire before those businesses formally became part of Cetera.

Retention Protected More Than Advisor Headcount

Keeping advisors mattered because the real economic asset sat underneath them.

Client relationships drive revenue.

If an advisor left before conversion and clients followed, Cetera could lose both the professional and the associated asset base. If the advisor joined Cetera but clients declined to move, the headline retention rate could still overstate the economic success of the transaction.

That is why the nearly $50 billion figure matters alongside the 91% advisor number.

Cetera said the advisors choosing to join represented nearly $50 billion in client assets, exceeding the asset level cited when the deal was signed.

The two measures together provide a better picture than either one alone.

Advisor retention measures willingness to join. Asset retention measures whether valuable client relationships arrived with them.

Securian Sold The Wealth Platform Without Leaving Wealth Distribution Behind

The most strategically interesting part of the Securian deal may be the relationship that survived the sale.

Cetera acquired certain assets associated with Securian Financial Services, which included broker-dealer, registered investment adviser and insurance-agency operations. But the parties also created a strategic partnership under which Securian Financial would distribute individual life insurance and annuity products through Cetera-affiliated financial professionals.

That is an important distinction.

Securian could step away from direct ownership of the retail wealth infrastructure while preserving access to a much larger advisor distribution network.

In other words, selling the wealth business did not necessarily mean abandoning the economics of financial-professional distribution.

Manufacturing And Advice Require Different Kinds Of Scale

An insurance company and a national wealth platform may serve the same household, but they operate fundamentally different businesses.

An insurer develops, prices and manages products such as life insurance and annuities. That requires actuarial expertise, investment management, capital management, claims infrastructure, underwriting, product administration and long-duration risk management.

A wealth platform must support advisors.

That requires a different investment stack:

advisor workstations,
digital account opening,
CRM integrations,
financial planning tools,
portfolio systems,
cybersecurity,
brokerage supervision,
advisory compliance,
marketing review,
transition support,
recruiting,
succession resources,
practice financing,
client portals,
data integration,
service operations,
and increasingly, growth technology.

Owning both can create distribution benefits.

It can also require an insurer to keep investing in an entirely different competitive infrastructure simply to keep its advisor platform relevant.

Securian’s solution was separation without complete disconnection.

Cetera would operate the wealth platform. Securian could continue participating as a product manufacturer and strategic distribution partner.

The Arrangement Also Expanded Securian’s Potential Reach

Before the transaction, Securian’s retail wealth business gave the company a direct relationship with its own affiliated financial professionals.

After the transaction, the distribution agreement opened a path to Cetera’s broader advisor ecosystem.

At the end of 2022, Cetera said it had more than 8,000 financial professionals and approximately $322 billion in assets under administration. Securian was therefore entering a strategic relationship with an organization much larger than the wealth network it was selling.

That does not mean every Cetera advisor would suddenly recommend Securian products.

Product recommendations remain subject to advisor judgment, client needs, regulatory requirements and each firm’s approved platform.

But commercially, the structure created a different proposition.

Securian no longer had to own the entire advisor platform to maintain a route into wealth distribution.

More Than 30 Independent Firms Made “One Acquisition” Misleading

The Securian transaction can look simple when reduced to two numbers: more than 1,000 advisors and $47.4 billion in assets under administration.

Operationally, it was more fragmented.

Those financial professionals worked across more than 30 independent firms. Cetera also described Securian’s managing-partner structure as a feature it respected and intended to preserve within the new Cetera Wealth Management Group community.

That meant Cetera was not merely moving hundreds of individually affiliated advisors from one broker-dealer record to another.

It was taking responsibility for a network of established local businesses with their own leadership relationships.

Managing Partners Sit Between The Home Office And The Advisor

A managing-partner model can create an important layer of local leadership.

Instead of every advisor relying directly on a national corporate office for every element of culture, growth and relationship management, local or regional leaders can help recruit professionals, support practices and translate home-office resources into the needs of individual businesses.

That structure can become valuable during an acquisition because advisors may trust the local leadership team more than executives at the acquiring company.

If the managing partner remains committed to the transition, the advisor receives some continuity.

If the managing partner is uncertain, the entire local organization can become vulnerable.

That helps explain why Cetera emphasized that managing partners and advisors would remain together inside a dedicated Cetera Wealth Management Group community.

Preserving the community reduced one source of uncertainty.

The corporate parent changed.

The advisor did not necessarily lose the network of relationships immediately surrounding the practice.

Nearly 150 Employees Moved Behind The Advisors

The transaction also included a substantial employee transition.

At closing, Cetera said nearly 150 Securian team members were joining its home-office staff.

That is strategically important because advisor retention depends heavily on people clients never see.

An independent practice may rely on home-office teams for:

account-opening assistance,
trade and operational support,
licensing,
regulatory filings,
supervisory questions,
product approvals,
compensation,
technology troubleshooting,
investment research,
marketing reviews,
transition paperwork,
advisory-program administration,
trust support,
and escalation when a client problem cannot be solved locally.

Moving advisors without enough of the institutional knowledge behind them can create immediate service problems.

Moving experienced employees along with the advisor network gives the buyer a better chance of preserving continuity while it gradually integrates processes.

That is one reason Cetera’s claim that it had minimized disruption matters more than standard acquisition language might suggest.

In wealth management, integration quality often shows up first as a service ticket.

Cetera Did Not Dissolve The Securian Identity Into A Generic Advisor Pool

Cetera could have treated the acquisition as a pure consolidation exercise.

Instead, the former Securian advisors became Cetera Wealth Management Group, a distinct community within Cetera Advisor Networks.

That structure fits Cetera’s broader philosophy of organizing financial professionals into communities rather than forcing everyone into one undifferentiated affiliation model.

For an acquired advisor, this can serve two purposes.

First, it preserves some organizational identity.

Second, it gives the buyer time to prove the value of its broader platform without demanding that advisors immediately abandon the culture and relationships they already understand.

Community Preservation Can Be A Retention Tool

Advisors often say they want independence, but independence does not necessarily mean isolation.

Many value:

peer relationships,
familiar regional leadership,
specialized service teams,
established conferences,
shared business-development practices,
local recruiting networks,
and communities of professionals operating similar practices.

An acquisition that eliminates those structures can make the new firm feel larger but less useful.

A buyer that preserves them can use community as a bridge into the larger organization.

That appears to have been part of Cetera’s approach.

The Securian advisors gained access to Cetera’s wider technology, product and growth infrastructure without being told that their previous network identity no longer mattered. Cetera explicitly described culture and managing-partner relationships as reasons the organizations fit together.

For a firm trying to retain more than 1,000 people during a contested transition, that was not merely branding.

It was an integration strategy.

The Trust Company Was The Deal’s Sleeper Asset

Most coverage of the Securian transaction understandably focused on advisors and client assets.

The acquisition of Securian Trust Company deserves its own analysis.

Cetera bought the equity of the trust company as part of the transaction and renamed it Cetera Trust Company, N.A. At closing, Cetera said the standalone entity would continue serving existing advisors and clients while expanding to support other Cetera businesses.

Two years later, Cetera was doing exactly that.

In June 2025, the firm appointed Kerri Scharr as chief fiduciary officer and said Cetera Trust was positioned to significantly expand trust services throughout Cetera’s channels and communities. Cetera also said the trust company and its predecessor entities had operated since 1928.

That makes the trust company one of the clearest examples of an acquired capability that became useful beyond the original acquisition.

A National Trust Charter Changes What Cetera Can Offer

Cetera Trust is a national non-depository trust bank chartered and regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Cetera said that national charter enables the company to operate across all 50 states.

National trust-company infrastructure can matter particularly as advisory practices move further into high-net-worth and multigenerational planning.

An advisor can manage an investment portfolio.

That does not automatically mean the advisor or broker-dealer can act as:

trustee,
executor,
trust administrator,
fiduciary investment manager,
or another formal fiduciary role a client may require.

National banks engaged in trust operations face specific OCC rules, policies and recordkeeping requirements, reflecting the different responsibilities attached to fiduciary activity.

Owning a trust company therefore gives Cetera an adjacent capability rather than another version of ordinary brokerage.

Trust Services Can Keep Complex Relationships Inside The Ecosystem

Consider a business-owner client who has spent 20 years with a Cetera advisor.

As wealth grows, the relationship may move beyond investment selection.

The client may need help with:

transferring wealth to children,
administering an irrevocable trust,
selecting a corporate trustee,
coordinating an estate plan,
managing assets for a surviving spouse,
planning a business sale,
making charitable transfers,
or creating continuity when family members cannot or should not manage the assets themselves.

Without an affiliated trust capability, the advisor may need to send part of that relationship to an outside bank or trust company.

With Cetera Trust, more of the planning ecosystem can potentially remain connected to the advisor.

Cetera made that strategy explicit in 2025, saying it wanted to broaden trust services across the organization and highlighting corporate-trustee services for high-net-worth families, business owners and estate-planning situations.

That is a different kind of acquisition synergy.

It is not produced by cutting duplicate employees.

It is produced by giving thousands of other advisors access to an asset that arrived through the Securian transaction.

Clients Did Not Need An M&A Thesis. They Needed Continuity.

Clients rarely choose an advisor because they admire the capitalization strategy of the advisor’s broker-dealer.

They care about the relationship in front of them.

That creates an unusual dynamic during acquisitions. The home office can change dramatically while the advisor tries to make the client experience feel uneventful.

For Cetera and former Securian practices, success depended on separating those two realities.

What Could Change Behind The Scenes

A platform transition can touch several pieces of the client relationship:

Broker-dealer affiliation: The legal entity supporting brokerage activity may change.
Investment advisory relationship: Advisory agreements or associated entities may require updates.
Account documentation: New forms or disclosures may be necessary.
Digital access: Portals, login credentials or reporting systems can change.
Product availability: The new platform may approve a different range of investments, insurance products or advisory programs.
Service contacts: Operational support may move to different teams.
Privacy disclosures: Clients may receive new information about how their data is handled.
Compensation disclosures: The economics associated with brokerage or advisory services may differ.
Supervision: Recommendations become subject to the policies and supervisory systems of the new firm.
Trust services: Clients using Securian Trust could see the institution renamed even if the underlying service relationship continued.

The ideal transition makes those changes understandable rather than invisible.

Clients should know which entity now serves them, what changed, what did not and whether they need to take any action.

The Advisor Becomes The Interpreter Of The Deal

That puts substantial pressure on the advisor.

The advisor may have had no role in negotiating the acquisition but becomes responsible for explaining it to every client.

A useful client conversation therefore has to move past corporate messaging.

The advisor needs to explain practical issues:

Why did I choose to join Cetera?
Will I still own or control my practice?
Does your investment strategy change?
Are your fees changing?
Will you need to sign new agreements?
Is your account custodian changing?
Are the products you own still supported?
How will you access your accounts?
Who should you call if something goes wrong?
Does the move give me capabilities I did not have before?

A 91% advisor-retention rate is impressive for the buyer.

For clients, the more important measure is whether those conversations created enough confidence for assets and relationships to remain.

Insurance Distribution Makes The Compliance Story More Complicated

The strategic partnership between Cetera and Securian had an obvious commercial rationale.

Cetera gained a relationship with a major insurance manufacturer. Securian retained access to financial-professional distribution without owning the wealth platform it had sold.

But combining brokerage, advisory and insurance activity also makes role clarity important.

Cetera’s own transaction announcement noted that financial professionals across its firms may operate as registered representatives providing brokerage services, investment adviser representatives providing advisory services or both.

Those capacities carry different compensation structures and regulatory duties.

The Product Relationship Cannot Override The Client Relationship

A distribution agreement creates a business incentive to make products available.

It does not eliminate the standards governing recommendations.

Under the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest, a broker-dealer making a recommendation to a retail customer must act in the customer’s best interest and cannot place the financial interests of the broker-dealer ahead of the customer. The SEC also identifies disclosure, care, conflict-of-interest and compliance obligations within Reg BI.

That matters when an advisor has access to products from a strategic partner.

The existence of a commercial relationship can be legitimate.

The recommendation still has to stand on its own merits for the particular client.

The advisor and firm need to understand relevant factors such as:

the client’s goals,
liquidity needs,
costs,
surrender terms,
investment horizon,
insurance needs,
alternative products,
compensation,
conflicts,
tax considerations,
and whether the recommendation fits the capacity in which the professional is acting.

The same individual may also serve a client through both brokerage and advisory relationships.

The SEC has specifically noted that the applicable standard can depend on the capacity in which a dually registered professional is acting when making the recommendation.

That makes clear disclosure especially important in a wealth-and-insurance ecosystem.

Form CRS Helps Clients Understand The Relationship

Broker-dealers and SEC-registered investment advisers must provide retail investors with Form CRS, a relationship summary that explains important information about the firm and its relationship with the client.

In an acquired advisor network, that disclosure becomes more than regulatory paperwork.

It helps answer a fundamental question:

Who is actually providing what service now?

That question matters when the advisor relationship may involve brokerage, investment advice, insurance products and potentially trust services connected to different legal entities.

The larger Cetera’s ecosystem becomes, the more valuable clear entity and capacity language becomes.

Scale creates more capability.

It can also create more ways to confuse a client.

Securian’s Strategic Exit Was Not A Rejection Of Financial Advice

It would be easy to describe the sale as Securian leaving wealth management.

The strategic partnership makes that interpretation too simplistic.

Securian said the transaction would allow it to increase focus and accelerate growth in priority markets while continuing its commitment to the retail wealth business through its partnership with Cetera.

The distinction is between owning advisor infrastructure and participating in advisor distribution.

Securian could still manufacture insurance and retirement solutions and maintain relationships with financial professionals without carrying the full responsibility of operating the acquired retail wealth network.

That can be strategically attractive as wealth platforms demand greater scale.

Technology spending continues.

Cybersecurity obligations continue.

Broker-dealer supervision continues.

Advisor recruiting becomes more competitive.

RIA infrastructure becomes more important.

Succession capital becomes part of the platform proposition.

A company primarily focused on insurance has to decide whether owning those capabilities generates enough strategic return to justify continually funding them.

Securian decided Cetera could provide the advisor platform while Securian maintained a commercial connection.

Cetera Was Quietly Building An Insurance-Carve-Out Specialty

The Securian deal becomes more meaningful when placed next to Cetera’s other acquisitions.

Cetera later described Concourse Financial Group Securities as its latest insurance-company carve-out and explicitly connected that deal to earlier acquisitions from Foresters Financial, Voya Financial and Securian.

The sequence matters:

Transaction

Seller Connection

What Cetera Added

Strategic Signal

Foresters Financial

Insurance organization

Roughly 500 advisors

Cetera could absorb insurer-affiliated brokerage assets

Voya Financial Advisors

Insurance and retirement company

Approximately $37 billion in assets

Cetera could transition a much larger independent planning channel

Securian Financial

Life insurance and financial services company

Nearly $50 billion in client assets and a trust company

Cetera could preserve a managing-partner community while maintaining an insurance distribution relationship

Concourse Financial Group Securities

Protective Life subsidiary

Roughly 350 financial professionals and more than $12 billion in AUA

Cetera repeated the carve-out strategy with another insurer-owned hybrid wealth business

Cetera’s Concourse acquisition makes the pattern especially clear. Protective said selling Concourse Securities would allow it to focus on its core life insurance and annuity businesses while Cetera provided the scale and resources for financial professionals and clients.

That sounds familiar because it is.

Securian had already given Cetera a large-scale example of essentially the same strategic division of labor.

Prior Conversions Make The Next Seller Easier To Convince

A seller choosing a buyer for an advisor network has more at stake than purchase price.

A poor transition can damage relationships with advisors, employees and clients. That can matter even if the seller plans to exit the business because reputational consequences do not disappear on closing day.

Cetera’s prior transactions give it a case to make to future sellers:

We know how to move advisor communities.
We know how to retain local identity.
We have done this with insurer-affiliated businesses before.
We can provide technology and operating scale.
We can retain employees needed for continuity.
We can support advisors after the parent company exits.
We can preserve commercial partnerships when they still make sense.

Securian became one of the strongest proof points because of its scale and the reported 91% retention result.

Every successful integration makes the next acquisition pitch more credible.

Cetera’s Recruiting Story Changed After Securian

Acquisitions and recruiting often get treated as separate growth strategies.

They are connected.

An acquisition adds advisors in one transaction. What the buyer does afterward determines whether those advisors become evidence for or against the platform in ordinary recruiting.

If former Securian practices thrive inside Cetera, recruiters can point to them when talking with outside advisors.

If they struggle, competitors can point to the same practices.

Acquired Advisors Become Living References

A prospective recruit evaluating Cetera may care more about another advisor’s experience than a corporate presentation.

That advisor can ask a former Securian practice:

Was the conversion organized?
Did service deteriorate?
Did Cetera deliver the technology it promised?
Was local leadership preserved?
Did compliance become harder?
Did clients stay?
Did you gain better growth resources?
Can you still run the practice the way you want?
Was joining Cetera better than leaving during the acquisition?

That is where M&A starts influencing organic recruiting.

Cetera’s current recruiting strategy increasingly emphasizes growth resources, flexible affiliation, technology and service. Its Growth Guarantee, for example, tries to make the firm’s growth promise measurable rather than relying exclusively on broad platform claims.

The connection to Securian is indirect but important.

Large acquisitions expand the platform.

Successful advisor experiences make the platform easier to sell.

The Back Office Eventually Has To Catch Up With The Acquisition Pace

There is another side to acquisition-driven growth.

Every community added to a large wealth organization brings systems, personnel, supervision, technology, workflows, contracts and support structures that eventually have to coexist.

Cetera followed the Securian transaction with the $1.2 billion Avantax acquisition later in 2023 and continued pursuing other acquisitions afterward. By June 2024, Cetera said the organization had approximately 12,000 financial professionals and more than $521 billion in assets under administration.

That growth creates scale.

It also creates operating complexity.

NJ Financial News examined that tension in its coverage of post-acquisition infrastructure, where the broader issue was how wealth firms eventually rationalize overlapping technology, marketing, recruiting, compliance and back-office functions after years of expansion.

Securian illustrates why that work cannot simply begin with aggressive consolidation.

Cetera first needed to keep the advisors.

Once advisors trust the new owner and client relationships stabilize, the buyer has more freedom to improve efficiency.

That sequencing matters.

Retention first. Integration second. Efficiency third.

Trying to capture all the efficiencies immediately can undermine the relationships that justified the acquisition in the first place.

Cetera Trust Shows What A Successful Acquisition Asset Can Become

By 2025, the former Securian trust company had become something more than a legacy business Cetera inherited.

Cetera said it was actively expanding trust services across its channels and communities. The company hired a chief fiduciary officer with two decades of Fidelity Personal Trust experience, opened an office in New Hampshire and described trust services as a way to create additional value for advisors and high-net-worth clients.

That development provides a useful framework for judging acquisitions.

The best acquired assets do not merely survive.

They become more valuable because the buyer can distribute them across a larger organization.

The Cross-Platform Opportunity

At acquisition, the trust company served the existing Securian advisor and client population.

Inside Cetera, the addressable audience became much larger.

A trust capability can potentially support advisors serving:

high-net-worth families,
business owners,
multigenerational households,
widows and surviving spouses,
families with complex estate structures,
charitable clients,
beneficiaries requiring professional administration,
and clients who need an independent corporate fiduciary.

That can also strengthen advisor retention.

An advisor with access to sophisticated planning infrastructure has one fewer reason to leave for a private bank, wirehouse or competing RIA platform that can offer those capabilities.

Trust services therefore operate at two levels.

They help the client solve a planning problem.

They help the platform become harder for the advisor to replace.

The Securian Deal Created Three Different Kinds Of Value For Cetera

The transaction becomes easier to understand when the acquired value is separated into categories.

1. Immediate Scale

Cetera gained more than 91% of the invited financial professionals and nearly $50 billion in client assets at close.

That increased advisor count, assets and market presence immediately.

2. Distribution Depth

The Securian professionals came from more than 30 independent firms with established local leadership structures. Cetera gained not only individual advisors but an existing distribution organization.

That can support recruiting, local growth and future practice development.

3. Platform Capability

The trust company gave Cetera a nationally chartered fiduciary business that could eventually serve advisors far beyond the original Securian community.

This third category is easy to miss because it does not show up as advisor headcount.

Over time, it may be one of the most strategically reusable pieces of the transaction.

What Advisors Should Watch In The Next Insurance-Wealth Carve-Out

The Securian deal gives advisors a practical framework for evaluating similar acquisitions.

The question is not simply whether the buyer is bigger.

Advisors should examine what the transaction actually changes.

Before Choosing Whether To Stay, Ask:

Will my local structure survive?If a practice depends heavily on managing partners, branches or regional support, understand whether those relationships continue after closing.

What happens to my technology?A platform change can affect every member of the team. Ask what stays, what migrates and how long parallel systems will remain available.

Does the product shelf change?Insurance, brokerage and advisory practices may depend on specific products, programs or carriers.

How does compensation change?Transition bonuses are temporary. Long-term payout, fees and operating expenses matter more.

What does compliance look like?A larger firm can offer more sophisticated support, but it can also bring different supervisory requirements.

What happens to succession?A new parent may offer practice-acquisition financing, continuity solutions, minority investments or full buyout options that were not previously available.

Will clients need to repaper accounts?The amount of paperwork and operational disruption can directly influence retention.

Which specialists become available?Trust, estate-planning, insurance, tax, retirement-plan or business-owner resources can materially improve a practice if they are accessible rather than merely advertised.

Can I speak with advisors from prior acquisitions?This may be the most useful diligence step. Existing advisors can describe the actual post-close experience.

Those questions move the decision beyond recruiting rhetoric.

They test whether the buyer’s scale improves the practice.

Bottom Line: Securian Became More Valuable To Cetera Than The Closing Headline Suggested

The August 2023 InvestmentNews headline focused on a successful close.

That made sense.

Cetera had just persuaded more than 91% of Securian’s invited financial professionals to join the organization despite active recruiting by competitors. Those advisors represented nearly $50 billion in client assets and became Cetera Wealth Management Group.

But the transaction deserves a wider reading.

Cetera acquired a network of more than 30 independent firms without immediately dissolving the community structure that connected them. It brought nearly 150 Securian employees into the home office. It established a strategic relationship that allowed Securian to remain connected to advisor distribution for life insurance and annuities. And it acquired a national trust company that would later become part of Cetera’s broader high-net-worth and fiduciary strategy.

Securian also gave Cetera something less tangible.

Experience.

Cetera had already acquired wealth businesses associated with Foresters and Voya. After Securian, it went on to buy Concourse Financial Group Securities from Protective Life, explicitly describing the deal as another insurance-company carve-out.

That sequence suggests Cetera has developed a specific M&A competency: taking advisor businesses that insurance companies no longer want to operate directly and giving them a home inside a larger wealth platform.

For insurers, the attraction is specialization. They can focus capital and management attention on insurance, annuities and other core businesses while maintaining selected distribution relationships.

For Cetera, the attraction is scale plus optionality. It gets advisors, client assets, specialized teams and sometimes infrastructure that can be reused across the wider platform.

For advisors, however, none of those strategic benefits matter unless the new home actually works.

The real test remains the same one Cetera faced in August 2023.

Can the buyer make enough financial professionals believe that joining is better than leaving?

With Securian, more than 91% said yes.

The years that followed show why Cetera wanted more than their assets.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cetera’s Securian Acquisition

What Did Cetera Acquire From Securian Financial?
Cetera acquired certain assets associated with Securian Financial Services’ retail wealth operations as well as the equity of Securian Trust Company. The business included more than 1,000 financial professionals across more than 30 independent firms when the transaction was announced.
The advisors who transitioned became part of Cetera Wealth Management Group, while Securian Trust Company became Cetera Trust Company.
How Many Securian Advisors Joined Cetera?
Cetera said more than 91% of the invited Securian financial professionals chose to join the company when the acquisition closed in August 2023. The practices represented nearly $50 billion in client assets.
InvestmentNews had previously reported that 95 Securian advisors had left for competitors by late July, including LPL Financial, Raymond James and StanCorp.
What Happened To Securian Trust Company?
Cetera acquired the trust company and renamed it Cetera Trust Company, N.A. The national non-depository trust bank continued serving existing relationships and was positioned for expansion throughout the larger Cetera network.
By 2025, Cetera was actively expanding the business, including appointing a new chief fiduciary officer and establishing a New Hampshire office.
Did Securian Completely Leave Its Relationship With Financial Advisors?
No. The transaction included a strategic partnership under which Securian Financial would distribute its individual life insurance and annuity products through Cetera-affiliated financial professionals.
That structure allowed Securian to separate ownership of the retail wealth platform from its continued interest in financial-professional distribution.
Why Is The Securian Deal Important To Cetera’s Current M&A Strategy?
The deal became part of a broader Cetera pattern involving insurer-affiliated wealth businesses. Cetera later identified its acquisitions involving Foresters Financial, Voya Financial Advisors, Securian and Concourse Financial Group Securities as part of its inorganic growth history.
Securian is particularly important because the transaction combined substantial advisor retention, preservation of an existing advisor community, an insurance distribution partnership and acquisition of a trust company that Cetera later expanded.