Cetera Financial Group announced Tuesday that it launched Cetera Planning Partners, an employee-advisor RIA that combines its Avantax Planning Partners (APP) and The Retirement Planning Group (TRPG) RIA divisions.
The combined company will have 100 advisors with about $19 billion in assets under administration (AUA), reflecting March 31 numbers, and operate as an employee-advisor community within Cetera’s RIA and Branches channel, according to the firm.
The creation of Cetera Planning Partners “builds on Cetera’s ongoing efforts to expand and scale its employee-advisor RIA community through a range of strategic transactions and growth initiatives,” the firm said.
Over the past six years, Cetera noted, it closed about 70 deals supporting that strategy, including the 2026 additions of Darnall Sikes Wealth Partners, Plains Wealth Management and Matkovic Financial Group.
Explaining why Cetera decided to launch the unified national RIA now, Jennifer Hanau, President of the Cetera RIA and Branches channel, told WSR by email: “The RIA market is consolidating fast, and advisor behavior is shifting rapidly as well, and Cetera made the decision to lead during this time of change, not to wait.”
She added: “Advisors increasingly want to spend more time serving clients while leaving the rest – back-office support, Compliance, marketing and other growth resources – to a firm like Cetera.
“The Cetera Planning Partners model allows advisors to focus exclusively on their clients. Client demand for financial planning is at an all-time high and with many advisors nearing retirement and looking for succession solutions, the advisor transition wave is already underway.
She concluded, “Cetera is in a position of strength, we’ve been very focused on building the right team of RIA talent, and we believe it’s a moment in time right now to lead the RIA segment in this way.”
In the news release, she explained: “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. 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 with Cetera Planning Partners will have access to in-house specialists for financial planning, tax, investments, estate planning, insurance, trust services and retirement solutions, as well as CPA firm relationships and a multi-custodial platform.
“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,” Mike Durbin, CEO of Cetera Financial Group, said in the release.
He added, “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.”
Commenting on the launch of Cetera Planning Partners, David DeVoe, CEO and Founder of consulting firm DeVoe & Company, told WSR: “This isn’t about size—it’s about structure. Cetera Financial Group is packaging scale into a centralized RIA model to drive consistency, better margins, and a more unified client experience.”
Cetera’s move makes sense because “advisors say they want independence, but many are gravitating toward platforms that offer planning, tax, and succession support,” said DeVoe. “This meets that demand while improving economics for the firm.”
Rival firms have already started making similar moves, DeVoe pointed out: “Look at Creative Planning, CAPTRUST, and Focus Financial Partners—all different models, same end goal: scale and integration. Even LPL Financial is pushing deeper into RIA. Cetera’s just catching up to where the market is already going.”
Cetera now has about 12,000 advisors and institutions that are part of its network and, as of Dec. 31, Cetera firms managed over $640 billion in AUA and $294 billion in assets under management (AUM), it said.
Jeff Berman, Contributing Editor and Reporter at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jeff.berman@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
