Carson Group Adds $1.6B Marietta Wealth Firm
Carson Group is adding a $1.6 billion Georgia-based independent practice into the firm’s integrated employee channel, the firm announced.
Marietta Wealth Management is based in Marietta, Ga., located about 15 miles from Atlanta. The firm is led by managing partners and advisors Scott Keller, Charlie Holloway, Ben Crow and Wes Hackney and offers investment management and financial, tax and retirement planning.
According to Carson Group CEO Burt White, the firm would benefit from the firm’s “integrated platform,” adding they “faced a challenge familiar to many successful advisory firms.”
“They wanted to keep growing, expand what they can offer clients and create long-term continuity without losing the planning philosophy and culture that made them successful,” White said.
According to Carson, Marietta Wealth weighed several partners before going with the Omaha-based $66 billion RIA aggregator. In addition to boosting daily operations, Carson is also offering ownership opportunities for the team and development for next-gen advisors. The deal also boosts Carson’s Atlanta presence.
According to SEC records, the firm’s principals were registered with Hennsler Financial until 2015, when they launched Marietta Wealth Management. The firm worked with Alaris Acquisitions as an M&A advisor during the deal.
In recent months, Carson lured a breakaway team from Wells Fargo, overseeing about $1.76 billion in assets, to the firm, marking its largest asset-based acquisition to date. The Hanover, N.H.-based Doyle and Loughman Wealth Management was founded by managing partners Brian Doyle and Stephen Loughman, who’d been with Wells Fargo for over 18 years.
In July, Carson launched an equity program that provides ownership opportunities for W-2 advisors and operational and support staff. Although the firm previously offered equity opportunities to founding advisors joining the W-2 channel via acquisition, the new program now allows high-growth advisors in the final year of acquisition-related incentives to participate.
In the midst of these changes, Carson also split its integrated W-2 employee channel into two separate business lines, meaning the firm’s sales and recruiting teams are in two divisions.
One team will aid the independent channel under the leadership of Scott Conroy, the firm’s former head of business consulting. Earlier this month, Carson announced it hired Matt Humphrey, a Goldman Sachs and United Bank alum, to lead the integrated W-2 channel.
