Mariner partners with Dynasty to launch platform for breakaway brokers

Mariner Wealth Advisors, with support from Dynasty Financial Partners, has launched a platform to attract breakaway reps from wirehouses, independent broker-dealers and even other advisory firms.

The new Mariner Platform Solutions, which is separate from the $36 billion registered investment adviser with 41 offices and more than 300 advisers, “could be even bigger than” Mariner Wealth Advisors, said founder and chief executive officer Marty Bicknell.

“Our sweet spot is reps managing $100 million to $300 million; one- to three-person shops that truly don’t want to build an enterprise or an infrastructure, but just want to give advice,” Bicknell added. “It’s aimed at breakaway advisers, but we’re not pigeonholing ourselves to the wires. It could be a breakaway from an existing RIA.”

MPS, as Bicknell calls it, has been in the works for several months and has technically been operational for a few weeks, but the official announcement was delayed by a few weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bicknell said no reps have joined the RIA yet, but the firm is in the onboarding process.

MPS is an RIA that is separate from the Mariner Wealth Advisors RIA, and reps joining the new platform will operate as investment advisory representatives and 1099 employees under the MPS RIA.

Advisers joining the platform will run independent businesses and have the option of leveraging the Mariner Platform Solutions name.

The Dynasty Financial connection is supplying the middle- and back-office infrastructure, for which Dynasty will collect part of the platform fee paid by advisers of between 30 and 50 basis points of assets under management.

Dynasty will deliver the Mariner Platform Solutions adviser desktop, inclusive of financial planning software and customer relationship management, among other capabilities, and deliver a client-facing portal where clients can access their financial information and digitally engage with their adviser.

Dynasty will also provide adviser support in the areas of digital marketing, investment operations, research, reporting, business analytics and CRM.

“You set up your own LLC, get your own clients, and give advice your way,” Bicknell said. “You’re just going to have my investment team building portfolios, my marketing team building your web site, and my tech team building the tech stack.”

Bicknell said linking with Dynasty, a $40 billion platform serving 45 advisory firms, made sense as the most efficient way to get the middle- and back-office functions operational.

“Dynasty is a large component of the service piece and is also doing the adviser desktop,” he said.

On the decision to outsource functions to Dynasty that Mariner Wealth Solutions is already providing to that business, Bicknell said, “We could use Mariner for MPS, but we’re choosing not to.”

“It’s about not wanting to distract my back-office team from their core job of serving Mariner Wealth Advisors,” he said. “If I was going to do that, I would have to build a separate back- office structure when I can just rent Dynasty’s.”

Jason McElwee will serve as managing director of Mariner Platform Solutions. Having co-founded Mariner Wealth Advisors as an associate with Bicknell, McElwee is coming back to his roots with more than two decades of experience providing wealth advice and generating sales within the financial services and asset management industry.

McElwee is rejoining Mariner from the investment firm Tortoise, where he was managing director of national sales.

“We’re thrilled to have someone of Jason’s caliber leading this platform,” Bicknell said. “His tenure in the industry and history with Mariner Wealth Advisors position him exceptionally well to spearhead the team.”

Shirl Penny, Dynasty’s president and CEO, described MPS as “broadening the funnel” for Mariner.

“Advisers can come in and bolt on, and, over time, if they want to sell up to the RIA, they can,” Penney said. “Sometimes advisers might not want to sell yet, but this provides another solution set for Mariner to bring those advisers on. Marty is being smart by partnering, because this way he doesn’t have to hire 20 people and set up a separate division.”

Louis Diamond, executive vice president at Diamond Consultants, said MPS gives Mariner an access point that it was missing.

“Mariner does a lot right, but they haven’t really penetrated the wirehouse channel,” he said. “It seems like it would appeal to those advisers that like the idea of being independent, but don’t want to go through the heavy lifting of starting a business. It will enable a smaller wirehouse adviser to talk about how they are part of a larger firm to make it seem like they have more scale. The Mariner brand doesn’t have the cachet yet of Merrill or Morgan Stanley, but in some communities it’s still a known entity and has a good reputation. The other thing is the collaboration with Dynasty, which is a good idea because Dynasty is very well known in the wirehouse community.”