Rohlik Financial Group, an independent practice overseeing about $1 billion in client assets, has partnered with OSJ AdvisorNet Financial to join Cetera Advisor Networks, the companies said.
Formerly affiliated with Regulus Financial Group, Rohlik Financial of Minneapolis is led by President and CEO Brent Rohlik, who founded the practice in 2009, and his sister, industry veteran Suzanne Holt, who joined her brother at his namesake firm in March 2021.
The team also includes Senior Director of Retirement Plan Services Rachel Stoneberg, advisor Andy Irlbeck, and two other employees.
The practice provides wealth management and retirement planning services to individuals, families and corporations in several key markets in northwestern Illinois and Wisconsin.
AdvisorNet Financial, founded in 1959 and also based in Minneapolis, is one of the largest branches at Cetera with 240 advisors nationwide.
“As we expand our wealth management offerings and deliver more advisory business, AdvisorNet and Cetera are the right home for our close-knit team of professionals and for our clients,” Rohlik and Holt said in a joint statement. “We look forward to hands-on collaboration with the AdvisorNet and Cetera teams as we continue to evolve our business and find new and innovative ways to serve our clients.”
In separate emails, Rohlik and Holt discussed their business and what each brought to it as a leadership team. Holt said that teamwork was an essential component of their practice, particularly for client couples.
“We find that often when a client works with just one advisor instead of a team, one person in the couple may feel ignored and will stop asking the questions that are important to both of them,” Holt said. “With us working together, we bring a well-rounded set of skills to the table, and make sure that all clients feel heard, as well as safe expressing themselves, particularly when discussing sensitive topics.”
Holt, who has more than 25 years of industry experience, said she has watched many clients move through the process of saving for retirement while raising families and trying to balance all of their goals at the same time. As each one approaches the threshold of retirement, she said, her greatest satisfaction as a financial advisor is their success.
“I’ve been a certified financial planner practitioner for more than two decades,” she said. “The education that designation gave me was a good foundation for working with planning clients.”
Rohlik originally planned to pursue a career in physical education, but after working part-time in the insurance industry, he went to work full-time for an insurance and wealth management firm in St. Paul, Minn., before founding Rohlik Financial Group.
As a financial advisor with experience in insurance, Financial Advisor asked Rohlik if it was possible for clients who were not millionaires to save enough for retirement without running out of money in the event they lived to age 100.
“Everyone’s situations and goals are unique,” he said in the email. “The same dollar amount of savings will generate different results for different clients based on their goals. We are realistic in showing clients what type of retirement they can have based on what they have done to save for it at their current point in life.”
Rohlik said that as he, Holt, and their team continued to expand their services in wealth management and financial planning, they started exploring the possibility of finding a new partner better equipped to support them.
“We started gathering information from other broker-dealers, talking to colleagues in the industry, and taking meetings to learn more about what was out there,” he said. “Cetera and AdvisorNet checked all of the boxes. AdvisorNet felt like home from the moment we walked through their doors. They share our values, and the extra specialities and services they bring to the table round out our team.”
Tim Stinson, president of Cetera Advisor Networks, said that Rohlik Financial Group was a cultural fit for his company.
“The Rohlik Financial Group team shares our client-first values and vision, and we welcome them to Cetera Advisor Networks,” he said in the news release. “We believe Brent, Suzanne, and their team are positioned well to achieve their goals and we are here to support them every step of the way. The team will fit in well at Cetera Advisor Networks and we look forward to working together for years to come.”
Cetera had a record year of recruiting in 2022, netting more than $13 billion in assets.
Home to more than 8,000 financial professionals and their teams, Cetera oversaw about $322 billion in assets under administration and $115 billion in assets under management as of December 31.