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Company Details
Mariner Wealth Advisors was founded in 2006 by Marty Bicknell with the mission to provide truly independent advisory services focused on meeting client needs above all else. The firm has been in operation for 18 years. Key growth milestones include:
Here's a timeline highlighting key milestones in the firm's history:
2006: Marty Bicknell, along with an initial team of eight individuals, established Mariner WealthAdvisors with the aspiration to build a firm centered around client needs.
2008: During the financial crisis, Mariner's growth doubled as top talent from larger firms were drawn to its client-centered approach, seeking alternatives to decisions made at larger institutions.
2009: The MarinerFoundation was established as the firm's charitable-giving vehicle, funded through associate donations and a dollar-for-dollar company match, reflecting a commitment to impacting the lives of many.
2012: Mariner acquired its first major firm outside Kansas City, initiating significant relationships within the investment banking community and marking the beginning of its expansion beyond the local market.
2015: The firm partnered with referral programs to drive new client growth, enhancing its outreach and service capabilities.
2016: Barron's rankedMariner among the top 5 Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms in its inaugural year of rankings, a position the firm has maintained consistently since then.
2018: Mariner introduced the "One Mariner" mindset, unifying its sub-brands under one roof for the first time. This initiative began with nationwide expansion through acquisitions of advisory firms sharing a common vision.
2020: The firm launched an independent platform to serve the needs of independent firms and advisors, providing broader access to various types of advisors and their clients.
2021: Mariner secured private equity investment, reinforcing its position as an industry leader and providing resources for further growth and innovation.
2023: The firm reached—and quickly surpassed—100 locations nationwide, demonstrating its rapidexpansion and commitment to serving clients across the country.
Throughout its history, Mariner Wealth Advisors has remained focused on its mission to keep clients at the center of everything it does, building a firm that adapts to the evolving needs of its clients and the financial services industry.
Commitment to Client Success
Mariner Wealth Advisors is dedicated to enhancing the financial well-being of its clients by focusing on a forward-looking, proactive approach.The firm's advisors emphasize collaboration, regularly reviewing clients’ financial plans and making adjustments to align with changing life circumstances or market conditions. This commitment to adaptability ensures that clients' strategies remain relevant and effective over time.
Future Vision
Looking ahead, Mariner Wealth Advisors aims to continue its growth and innovation in the wealth management space. The firm plans to further expand its service offerings and geographic presence while maintaining its dedication to providing clients with unparalleled financial guidance. By staying true to its core values of integrity, transparency, and client-focused service, MarinerWealth Advisors is well-positioned to remain a trusted partner for individuals and families seeking comprehensive financial solutions.
Mariner Wealth Advisors is a firm that offers personalized and comprehensive financial solutions under one roof. The company emphasizes a commitment to understanding each client's unique goals and delivering services that are aligned with their needs. The firm is known for its integrated approach, which combines financial planning, investment management, tax services, estate planning, trust services, and insurance into a seamless, client-centered experience.
Mariner Wealth Advisors describes its core philosophy as a dedication to"putting clients first," which it achieves by building long-term relationships and delivering advice without the conflicts of interest often associated with commission-based models. By offering most services in-house,Mariner aims to eliminate the need for clients to coordinate between multiple advisors or firms, providing both convenience and consistent strategic direction.
Services Offered
Mariner Wealth Advisors provides a wide range of services, including:
- Wealth Planning: Comprehensive planning services that account for clients' short- and long-term goals, ensuring that financial strategies are tailored to their unique life circumstances.
- Investment Management: Customized portfolios designed to align with individual risk tolerance and financial objectives, focusing on both growth and wealth preservation.
- Tax Planning & Preparation: In-house tax experts provide year-round planning and preparation services, helping clients maximize tax efficiency across all financial activities.
- Estate Planning: Expertise in crafting estate plans that reflect clients' values and priorities while minimizing taxes and ensuring a smooth transfer of wealth to future generations.
- Trust Services: Guidance and administration for creating and managing trusts to protect assets and secure the financial future of beneficiaries.
- InsuranceSolutions: Comprehensive review of clients’ insurance needs, including life, disability, and long-term care policies, to ensure adequatecoverage and risk management
Mariner Wealth Advisors serves Ultra High Net Worth, High Net Worth, and Mass Affluent clients. Typical clients include individuals, high net worth individuals, banking or thrift institutions, pension and profit-sharing plans, charitable organizations, and corporations. The firm typically works with retirees, business owners, and professionals such as dentists and physician
General Investment Philosophy: Mariner Wealth employs an open architecture investment platform that provides flexibility to use both third-party managers and in-house solutions for constructing client portfolios. The primary investment philosophy is Client-Centric Investing, with a focus on Principle-Based Investing and Risk Management Investing. The firm emphasizes asset allocation as the primary driver of portfolio construction and offers personalized and comprehensive financial solutions under one roof.
Investment Implementation: Mariner Wealth implements its investment philosophy through a combination of modeled and custom/bespoke portfolios. The firm accommodates both passive and active strategies, utilizing a variety of securities including individual stocks, individual bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and alternative investments. The investment team offers more than 60 portfolio strategy options, including customized solutions for high-net-worth (HNW) clients. These solutions encompass alternative and private investments, such as real estate funds and interval funds. The firm also provides access to third-party separately managed accounts (SMAs) and internal SMAs, with 16 internally managed strategies.
Portfolio Construction:
- Models or Custom/Bespoke Portfolios: Mariner Wealth uses a combination of modeled and custom/bespoke portfolios. The firm provides institutional-level expertise in constructing risk-adjusted portfolios tailored to client goals.
- Security Types Used: Individual stocks, individual bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, alternative investments, and annuities.
- Use of Alternative Investments: The alternative offerings include real estate funds and both liquid and interval fund structures. Mariner Wealth has private investment opportunities on its platform, such as the Mariner Private Opportunities Fund (MPOF), which sources proprietary deals from a network of advisors, clients, and entrepreneurs for direct investment.
Mariner Wealth Advisors offers a comprehensive investment management program designed to align clients' portfolios with their unique financial goals and risk tolerances. The program emphasizes personalized portfolio construction, strategic asset allocation, and ongoing management to adapt to changing market conditions and client objectives.
Investment Team Leadership
Mariner's investment team comprises seasoned professionals dedicated to delivering tailored investment strategies. Key members include:
- Katrina Radenberg, CFA – Chief Investment Officer: Katrina leads the firm's investment strategy and oversees portfolio management processes, ensuring that investment solutions are aligned with clients' financial goals.
- Jeff Krumpelman, CFA – Chief Investment Strategist & Head of Equities: Jeff directs equity strategies and provides market insights, leveraging his extensive experience in portfolio management and investment analysis. Prior to joining Mariner, he served as head of investments at Hilliard Lyons Capital Management, managing various equity strategies including dividend growth and large-cap growth.
- Mariner Wealth Advisors
- William Greiner, CFA – Chief Economist: William offers economic analysis and forecasts that inform the firm's investment strategies, contributing to asset allocation decisions and market outlooks.
- Ken Powell, CFA – Senior Portfolio Manager, Equities: Ken manages equity portfolios, bringing a wealth of experience from his previous role as a senior vice president and portfolio manager at CFW Capital Management, where he managed investment portfolios for high-net-worth individuals and foundations.
- Mariner Wealth Advisors
- Sandy Pourcillie, CFA – Head of Fixed Income: Sandy leads the fixed income team, focusing on strategies that aim to preserve capital and generate income, tailored to clients' specific needs.
- Michael Glennon – Vice President, Private Investments: Michael oversees private investment opportunities, providing clients with access to alternative investment strategies that complement traditional portfolios.
This team collaborates to deliver investment solutions that are integrated with clients' overall wealth management plans, ensuring a cohesive approach to achieving financial objectives.
Locations
Company Videos
Acquisition Model
Full Acquisition
All Cash
Yes
Max Cash: 100%
Max Equity: 0%
Standard retention terms are ~25% held for 12 months.
For the first three years, compensation is set at the retained owners compensation level used in the valuation. At the end of year three, they will offer a management incentive bonus, similar to a growth based earnout. Go forward compensation will be determined at that time.
Mandatory Points of Alignment
Mariner Wealth would like all partners to adopt their brand on day one to promote a unified firm.
Mariner will centralize all back office responsibilities such as technology, HR, accounting, and billing.
Advisors will have total autonomy over their client reccomendations.
Mariner will offload the P&L management from their partners.
Mariner Wealth would like to present a client experience through 360° Advice and encourages all advisors to utilize the tools at their disposal. Mariner only wants to enhance the current client experience.
Mariner Wealth has a very strong practice management service for advisor use, but it is not required.
Mariner Wealth allows advisors to retain investment management functions at the local level if desired or outsource to a centralized investment management team. All partners must centralize investment operations (trading, rebalancing, etc.).
Advisor Value Proposition
Reduction of Operational Burdens and Expansion of Services and Expertise.
Mariner Wealth Advisors significantly reduces operational responsibilities for advisors, allowing them to focus on client relationships and business growth. They achieve this by fully integrating back-office functions such as HR, compliance, accounting, technology, finance, legal, marketing, and operations. Advisors benefit from a dedicated back-office team that supports administrative tasks, compliance, HR, billing, and client service needs.
"By reduction of that noise, so to speak for the advisor, it allows them to return their time, their focus, and their energy to serving their clients." - Kevin Corbett
"We fully integrate things like HR, compliance, accounting, technology, all the stuff people hate anyway."- Kevin Corbet
Mariner Wealth Advisors offers a comprehensive suite of services that enhance the advisor's value proposition to clients. These services include wealth planning, investment management, tax planning and preparation, estate planning, trust services, insurance solutions, retirement plan services, and more. This broad range of services makes advisors more attractive to clients and helps increase revenue potential.
Support for core wealth management services, such as financial planning and investment management, is available to partners but it’s not mandatory that advisors adopt this support. Specifically, advisors aren’t required to use Mariner’s investment management models for clients. Mariner Wealth Advisors improves an advisor’s ability to deliver a better client experience by removing operational burdens and providing access to world-class wealth solutions and subject matter experts. They use a team-based approach where a senior advisor, a wealth advisor, and a client service advisor collaborate to deliver financial planning services.
Key Points:
- Team-Based Approach: Senior advisor, wealth advisor, and client service advisor collaborate.
- Holistic Financial Planning: Comprehensive services including tax, trust, estate planning, investment banking, business valuation, retirement plans, and insurance.
- Enhanced Client Experience: Tools and resources to improve the client experience.
"We want to elevate the client experience and the value proposition of the advisor. We surround them with tools and resources to elevate it, but we don't ask them to change it." - Marty Bicknell
Mariner wants to take off the operational burdens that its partners carry by centralizing technology, billing, HR, compliance, marketing, payroll, etc.
Beyond portfolio management and financial planning, Mariner offers estate planning, trust services, tax preparation and planning, insurance solutions, investment banking services, bank and credit union consulting services, and retirement plan solutions. Mariner added a law firm in 2022 to further make place advisors can be a “one stop shop” for clients.
Mariner Wealth helps partners grow organically by implementing a variety of strategies. They have a marketing/business development department staffed with approximately 30 people whose sole job is to assist partners in implementing an appropriate organic growth strategy based on desired growth, capacity, strengths and weaknesses. Mariner is part of Schwab’s and Fidelity’s custodian referral programs, which generates billions of dollars in organic growth AUM for partners. In addition to custodial referral programs, Mariner has a network of CPAs and retirement plans from which they drive leads for partners. There are approximately 50 CPA firms in Mariner Wealth’s network that share leads/business with Mariner advisors. Also, Mariner Wealth's internal marketing team comes alongside each partner to develop and implement traditional marketing strategies such as COI, event marketing, social media and direct mail campaigns.
Mariner focuses on centralized client acquisition strategies to drive organic growth. They provide marketing support to advisors and have demonstrated significant growth post-acquisition, with AUM CAGR of 15% or above and revenue CAGRs of 14% or above for all acquisitions. The advisor count has tripled, indicating successful recruitment and expansion.
Key Points:
- Centralized Client Acquisition: Drives client opportunities to advisors.
- Marketing Support: Provides centralized marketing services and lead generation systems.
- Significant Growth: AUM CAGR of 15% or above and revenue CAGRs of 14% or above for all acquisitions.
Mariner Wealth Advisors is committed to developing and mentoring next-generation (Gen 2) advisors. They offer a learning management system with a knowledge base of wealth management planning tactics and host an internship program for college students. The practice management team leads education efforts and provides structured training programs and mentorship initiatives.
Key Points:
- Learning Management System: Offers a variety of wealth management planning tactics and coursework.
- Internship Program: Hosts college students to develop their skillset and see wealth management as a potential career path.
- Practice Management Team: Leads education efforts and provides structured training programs and mentorship initiatives.
"We host an internship program each and every year that hosts upwards of 65 college students from around the country." - Kevin Corbett
AUM Growth
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