Advisors Excel adds services, partners with Jones Advisory Group

Advisors Excel has expanded services to reach broader markets in a move one founding partner said will be a "huge growth area over the next two to three years."

The company announced the formation of AE Wealth Management Thursday, a Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment advisor firm offering annuities, life insurance and securities.

Cody Foster, AE co-founder, said Wealth Management allows the investment advisors the company serves to more comprehensively meet client needs.

"Most of them use the annuities for the safety and income part of a portfolio," he said. "In 2010, we started our life insurance division, which has grown like crazy, probably one of the top five in the country now with $50 million in target premium, which in the life insurance business is huge."

That 2010 growth came about through a partnership with a Florida advisory firm, and although AE negotiated to buy the firm, those fell through, Foster said.

"I think on the annuity and the life insurance side, we're really best in class," he said. "Nobody has a wider selection and can do a better job. We weren't really best in class on the investment side with that partnership. We made the decision to start our own SEC-registered investment advisory firm so we can really help advisers with everything from annuities to life insurance to the investment management side of it."

Helping the advisors who use AE's services is what has propelled the company's growth, and while most use annuities as the "safety and income part of a portfolio," they need a top-notch investment side too, Foster said.

Megan Jones, founder and president of Topeka's Jones Advisory Group, partnered with Advisor's Excel in the new service. AE began in April and May to move advisers to AE Wealth Management. Foster said Jones' business is the largest AE is working with to date.

"The great thing about working with AE's Wealth Management is it's going to allow our clients access to investments and options that they never had access to before," she said. "They are using an institutional management company that manages about $55 billion in investments, and the type of planning and options and investments that they have are at levels that the average person is just not privy to. Now I can bring my client's assets to the table, and we can invest like all those big institutions. The opportunity is going to be just astronomical."

Jones said her company always had used an institutional manager, but the new one through AE is about eight times the size of the former management company.

Foster said his company has already added between 40 and 45 employees to support AE Wealth Management. Jones, too, said the move of her company's 300 clients to the AE platform necessitated the hiring of two employees. Jones Advisory Group also is moving to a new building, but as the contract has not been finalized, she couldn't say where.

Once in the new space, though, the company will look to office an estate attorney and a certified public accountant there to offer their clients a full realm of retirement services.

Making a change like this requires Jones' company to get all clients to sign new paperwork and a Thursday evening event at AE invited them to learn about the new offerings.

Foster said AE is expected to see significant growth from this service addition, pushed forward by an extensive technology platform that allows clients to log in and see all holdings and up-to-date performance data.

"It'll be our huge growth area, over the next two to three years," he said. "I don't think I'm exaggerating -- we'll probably have 100 employees in that division."

Credit: Morgan Chilson [email protected]