Mother joins daughter at $28B firm

It’s not always about what you know, but rather who you know.

Marianne Carter, president and founder of Chadwick Bay Investments, has teamed up with her daughter, Rachel Carter, at Sanctuary Wealth, a $28 billion RIA that recruits wirehouse and brokerage breakaways.

Carter’s motivation for the move is mainly about having a succession plan. The Carters will work together as part of North Carolina-based Chadwick Bay.

“I have clients that I have had for 30 years and as we are all aging, and the advisor population is aging, succession plans have become increasingly important,” said Marianne Carter, who is joining Sanctuary from Osaic. “My practice is predicated on retirement planning and financial planning, and, therefore, once a client has invested 10 or 15 years in a retirement plan, to turn it over without a succession plan would mean an entirely new road map, if you will, versus what clients have come to rely on as their retirement scenario.”

Carter added if something were to happen to her, that “that would necessitate a transition, and this way, there can be an active transition. A lot of clients knew Rachel when she worked with me when she was in college.”

One of the other reasons for the move to Sanctuary, Marianne Carter said, was the technological innovation that Sanctuary offers.

“Rachel had worked for me for so long and knew about the fact that I do financial planning. She knew the independent space was very, very important to me and she knew that technology is the way of the future. It is where we can give clients efficiency and more timely information,” she said.

Carter noted that none of her clients – most of whom are military service members, their families, and defense contractors – would be leaving, but that some would “team with Rachel, because the 401(k) piece is her area of expertise.”

Rachel Carter, who’s a senior retirement benefits consultant, joined Sanctuary from Merrill Lynch back in January. She decided to go independent and start her own firm that focuses on 401(k)s after seeing a colleague break off from his former firm.

“When he found Sanctuary, I watched his transition, and I asked him a million questions,” she said. “He was so happy, and I said, ‘I gotta go find that.’ And I now understand it, I really do.

“Sanctuary had so much to offer for me to become a full-fledged consultant,” Rachel Carter said. “Merrill really focuses on financial advisors and wealth management, and while that's the bread and butter, I just really wanted to fit over that retirement plan and be a subject matter expert in the field, and this opportunity allowed me to do so.”

Services the Carters are offering at the firm, in addition to wealth, tax and estate planning, range from plan design to vendor selection, cash balance and nonqualified plans and even education for plan sponsors and employees.

Rachel Carter summed it up as “anything that’s in that ERISA qualified retirement space and structuring retirement for the best way that would suit their employees or maximizing it for the owners.”

Marianne Carter said one of the most important things she’s seen over the course of her career is the evolution of financial security for individuals and families.

“For people in today's day and age, there are no longer pensions, and so people’s 401(k)s are increasingly important for them,” she noted. “One of the things that Rachel will be doing with me is working with all the clients who have 401(k)s and helping with that asset allocation so that we have an entirely holistic view of that family's investment directions, their savings strategy and whether they're going to be comfortable in retirement. We are hoping to marry this together so that each client has a holistic financial plan but [also] a very holistic outlook for the whole family for security.”

Rachel Carter noted that she’s a firm believer in systems and efficiency and that technology can help advisors become more efficient, serve their clients better, and spend more time doing what they really need them to do, which is more “hand-holding than a generic [reminder] to send a specific email on a certain day,” she says. Sanctuary offers just that.

“The technology stack that Sanctuary offers is phenomenal. It's been vetted by other advisors. They take feedback seriously through the advisor experience, and they really are so advisor-centric that I was blown away with the amount of support that they provide,” she added.

Her mother agrees.

“Obviously, the technology's changed over the years, the industry and regulations have changed but this is a broker-dealer who's really committed to the independent space. They're committed to the advisors and helping the advisors grow, and it's phenomenal. It's really exciting,” she said.