Avantax – a unique community within Cetera Holdings and a leader in tax-focused financial planning and wealth management – announced it welcomed financial advisors John Surace, Kelly Powers and their S&P Financial Services team (based in Hauppauge, New York in the heart of Long Island). And transferring to Avantax from Osaic, the team has approximately $150 million in client assets under administration as of June 2024.
S&P Financial’s goal is to build strong and multi-generational relationships with clients by offering them clarity, education, confidence, and complete disclosure when approaching their financial strategies.
Before forming S&P Financial Services, Surace’s experience included being an executive with a global financial services firm where he supervised a location with over 300 advisors, which won the President’s Trophy several times for being among the country’s top-producing branches. Powers managed money for clients for 30 years, while having other roles such as vice president, sourcing, hiring and training new financial advisors.
Surace and Powers had formed S&P Financial Services because they wanted to open an independent operation. But after their prior broker/dealer became part of Osaic, they started looking for a broker/dealer whose experience, service and focus on keeping commitments aligned with how Surace and Powers wanted to operate their organization.
KEY QUOTES:
“When we started talking with Avantax, things sounded so good that I was actually skeptical going in, but everything they told us came to fruition, and the entire company is very competent, from the top down. Transitioning to a new broker/dealer is stressful, and in other places the level of services that were promised turned out to be subpar. We didn’t experience any of that with Avantax. We trusted our gut, went with Avantax, and it’s been all green lights from the beginning.”
– John Surace
“The transition is a very stressful time for the advisor because it’s all new and it feels like your livelihood is in limbo, but the Avantax transition team was so professional, they took charge of everything and made me so comfortable. On previous transitions we were busy filling out paperwork, but at Avantax they picked up the ball and ran with everything, allowing us to focus on our clients. My experience was amazing, it was seamless and it’s all working very well.”
– Kelly Powers
“John, Kelly and their team are fantastic additions to the Avantax Community. Their experience running advisory practices at scale is impressive, and we’re looking forward to supporting them as they serve existing clients while planning to add advisors and grow their already highly successful practice.”
– The head of Avantax Business Development Tim Stewart, CFP
