AmeriLife Announces FormulaFolios/Brookstone Merger, Creates $6.5B RIA

AmeriLife Group, the national leader in marketing and distributing life, health and retirement solutions, is combining two of the industry's largest and fastest-growing Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) firms, Brookstone Capital Management and FormulaFolios, to create a $6.5 billion RIA.

This merger is supported by the recent partnership with FormulaFolios, an RIA with $3.5 billion in AUM, and occurs just one year after AmeriLife forged its partnership with Brookstone, a leading RIA that provides fee-based asset management services. This latest announcement further positions AmeriLife as one of the largest independent marketing and RIA organizations in the U.S.

"We've raised the bar again, combining two of the industry's largest and fastest-growing firms – Brookstone Capital Management and FormulaFolios – to create an RIA in excess of $6.5 billion," said Scott R. Perry, Chairman and CEO of AmeriLife. "This addition to the AmeriLife family continues to reinforce our position as a leading provider of advisory services to our targeted niche of retirement advisors. It's a major step toward AmeriLife's strategic goal of providing full-service life and health insurance and retirement and legacy planning services to our agents, advisors and clients nationwide."

The merger of FormulaFolios and Brookstone was completed on July 1, 2020. The combined entity now creates one of the largest RIAs catering to the independent retirement advisor community, with more than 800 advisors working from 500 offices across all 50 states. The FormulaFolios brand will be retained for continued oversight of the asset management division.

Key executives of both firms will be retained, with Dean Zayed, JD, LLM, CFP^® as CEO of Brookstone and President of AmeriLife's Investment Advisory Services division, and Darryl Ronconi as President and COO of Brookstone. Jason Wenk, co-founder of FormulaFolios, will serve as Executive Director at Brookstone.

"The addition of FormulaFolios extends our investment platform and enhances the training and resources we can provide to affiliated independent advisors," said Zayed. "Now, our combined organization delivers next-generation technology platforms, enhanced financial planning support, greater investment selection, digital marketing and lead generation solutions, and robust training and networking opportunities for advisors at each level of their career."

Through its partnership with Brookstone, AmeriLife entered the RIA space last year. This allowed AmeriLife to provide a more holistic approach to meeting the needs of consumers by helping insurance-focused advisors obtain their securities license. In acquiring FormulaFolios, AmeriLife further enhances its RIA platform for advisors and rapidly moves the company toward its goal of exceeding $10 billion in AUM.

In addition to FormulaFolios, AmeriLife has steadily acquired interests in organizations to further extend and enhance offerings to its more than 150,000 affiliated agents and advisors. In addition to Brookstone, acquisitions over the past 12 months include: Pinnacle Financial Services, a full-service health, life, annuity and long-term care marketing organization (May 2020); Jack Schroeder and Associates, a Medicare plan distributor (April 2020); J.D. Mellberg Financial, an annuity and retirement planning organization (Feb. 2020); Stephens-Matthews Marketing, an insurance marketing organization (Jan. 2020); and Agent Support Group, a multi-company life insurance brokerage agency (Dec. 2019).

AmeriLife's vision is to become the dominant distribution platform in the life and health insurance, annuity, and retirement planning marketplace by adding value for carriers, agents, advisors and consumers. The company's commitment to providing the finest and most innovative solutions to prepare retirees and pre-retirees for their retirement years has remained intact for nearly half a century, adapting to the ever-changing needs of its targeted clients. AmeriLife's future plans include continued expansion of its platform to offer all-inclusive solutions that ultimately serve pre-retiree and retirees as this market segment continues to grow.

In January 2020, AmeriLife announced a recapitalization agreement with private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. ("THL"), which has helped fuel the company's continued rapid expansion.

About AmeriLife
AmeriLife is a national leader in developing, marketing and distributing life and health insurance, annuities and retirement planning solutions to enhance the lives of pre-retirees and retirees. For nearly 50 years, AmeriLife has partnered with the nation's leading insurance carriers to provide value and quality to customers served through a national distribution network of over 150,000 insurance agents and advisors, 25 marketing organizations, and 50 insurance agency locations. Visit www.AmeriLife.com and follow AmeriLife on Facebook and LinkedIn for more information.

About Brookstone Capital Management
Founded in 2006, Brookstone Capital Management is an SEC-Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) firm providing fee-based asset management services through its niche network of more than 400 financial advisors and firms. As an open-architecture Turnkey Asset Management Platform (TAMP), Brookstone offers advisors a wide array of investment strategies. Founder and CEO Dean Zayed established Brookstone with the singular goal of forging strategic relationships with independent retirement advisors to comprehensively support all aspects of their fee-based advisory business. The company manages more than $2.95 billion, as of Dec. 31, 2019. Visit www.BrookstoneCM.com for more information.

About FormulaFolios
Founded in 2011, FormulaFolios is a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) that uses money management algorithms to eliminate emotion from the investment processes and empowers financial advisors to better serve their clients. FormulaFolios serves hundreds of financial advisors and thousands of clients nationwide and manages $3.64 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, 2019. It has offices in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Costa Mesa, Cali. Visit www.FormulaFolios.com for more information.

About Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P.
Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. ("THL") is a premier private equity firm investing in growth companies headquartered in North America. THL focuses its investment activity across four industry sectors: Financial Services, Consumer, Healthcare and Technology & Business Solutions. Since its founding in 1974, THL has raised more than $25 billion of equity capital, invested in over 140 companies and completed more than 360 add-on acquisitions representing an aggregate enterprise value at acquisition of over $200 billion. With dedicated sector and operating teams, THL brings deep domain expertise and resources to build great companies by helping to accelerate growth, improve operations and drive long- term sustainable value in partnership with management.