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Cetera Financial Group has combined two of its internal, owned registered investment advisors to create Cetera Planning Partners, a national employee RIA with over 100 advisors and about $19 billion in assets under advisement.
The deal brings together Avantax Planning Partners, Cetera’s wholly owned RIA channel that came over via the Avantax acquisition, and The Retirement Planning Group, an RIA that the broker/dealer acquired in 2023.
Cetera Planning Partners will operate as an employee-advisor community within Cetera’s RIA and Branches Channel, and is part of the firm’s broader efforts to grow its employee RIA community through acquisitions.The firm has completed 70 deals in the last six years, including the acquisitions of Darnall Sikes Wealth Partners, Plains Wealth Management and Matkovic Financial Group in 2026.
Cetera launched the dedicated RIA and Branches Channel in June under the direction of President Jen Hanau. That channel includes a supported RIA option, a W-2 RIA business line and supported independent branches.
“We built Cetera Planning Partners around a simple idea—advisors should never have to choose between what’s best for their clients today and what’s right for the future,” Hanau said in a statement. “For growth-focused advisors, that means more time with clients and a full bench of specialists behind them. For those thinking about succession, it means certainty: for their clients, their team, and the legacy they’ve built.”
Advisors will have access to in-house specialists across financial planning, tax, investments, estate planning, insurance, trust services and retirement solutions. The firm will also have established relationships with CPA firms and will be multi-custodial.
“To undertake a shift as significant as Cetera Planning Partners, you need the right conditions, the right alignment and the right leadership, and we have all those things backed by a strong capital structure,” Cetera Financial Group CEO Mike Durbin said in a statement. “Advisor sentiment is increasingly aligned with the RIA model, driven by accelerating client demand for financial planning and advice. Cetera Planning Partners is how we lead it.”
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