United Capital unveils national mass-affluent strategy keyed to a radio program

United Capital Financial Advisers LLC is taking to the airwaves, using a radio program to grow into a national wealth management firm that can handle the business of virtually all levels of investors.

United Capital announced today that it has acquired Steven L. Pomeranz Financial Management of Boca Raton, Fla., a 16-year-old advisory firm with approximately $200 million in assets under management and 140 family relationships. Steven Pomeranz, founder and president of the firm, has been in the industry since 1981.

The former Merrill Lynch advisor is also the creator and host of a successful radio program, “On the Money! with Steve Pomeranz,” which airs on about 11 stations, including WPBI and WLRN, public radio affiliates for South Florida, and in four other states, including New Jersey and California.

United Capital will take Steve Pomeranz’
radio program into markets where it
has branches.

With Pomeranz on board, the Newport Beach, Calif.-based aggregator with 38 offices and $14 billion of assets is unabashedly taking a page from the playbooks of Ric Edelman and Adam Bold, both of whom feed leads to advisors from their radio audiences — including the mass affluent.

The plan is for United Capital to help Pomeranz to take the show into markets around the country where United Capital has branches. The plan also calls for United Capital to add substantially to the show’s content by using its Honest Conversations and Money MindTM Analyzer planning techniques.

Until now, United Capital Financial Advisers has focused primarily on high-net-worth investors.

Duran on the air

In addition, the company is going to set up a studio in its headquarters city of Newport Beach, Calif., so that chief executive Joe Duran can broadcast his thoughts.

“Joe absolutely will take a turn at the microphone … but he isn’t the show. We like to think it’s the special sauce,” says Jason Del Col, senior vice president of advisory services for United Capital.

Joe Duran will share the microphone
with new recruit Steven Pomeranz.

United Capital hopes that Duran’s regular contributions to the program will do double duty: drawing in consumers while attracting advisors hoping to capitalize on the referral flow to United Capital branches.

Room for one more?

The plan is groundbreaking because it marks the first time an RIA has utilized the two hottest models of growth backed by private equity: aggregating existing practices and drawing in customers by establishing trust through media. See: Mutual Fund Store sells controlling interest to Warburg Pincus.

Del Col is mindful of, but not intimidated by, the fact that pioneers such as Adam Bold and Ric Edelman already attract huge followings.

“The concern [about market saturation] would be valid, but I think there’s still a massive opportunity. It’s a self-selection process.”

Edelman says in an e-mail that he does not fear competition or saturation, but that there challenges that a regional player might not fully appreciate in taking a practice national.

Philip Palaveev, president of Fusion Advisor Network, continues to see interest in mass marketing and developing a brand among RIAs and says that United Capital is on the right track. If anything, he says he’s biased toward the radio-host-marketing strategy because one of his Fusion advisors was receiving leads from Edelman Financial for a while. and he says there was a strong flow of quality leads. “It was fantastic,”

Philip Palaveev: You have to follow
the franchise book and flip the
burger in a certain way.

But, echoing Edelman’s concern, Palaveev says there is an intrinsic caveat.

“I think the world of Joe Duran and those guys. It’s not a criticism but it’s just that advisors [who sign on to reap radio referrals] have to be clear about what they’re getting into. The challenge for the advisor is, if you’re branded you have to comply with the brand. You have to follow the franchise book and flip the burger in a certain way. It generally means [accepting] a higher level of compliance.”

RIA nation

Duran has long spoken publicly of creating the first truly national RIA and one that grows with a plan that goes well beyond simply rolling up firms — and has spoken of using some combination of technology and repeatable service to succeed. See: Why Joe Duran believes that classic RIA firms face extinction.

That effort began to become evident with Honest Conversations. See: Joe Duran tries out novel financial planning strategy on himself and his wife. But the company has continued to make a host of behind-the-scenes efforts to prepare for an onslaught of investors with smaller balances.

Much of the effort centers on creating what Del Col refers to as a doctor/nurse-practitioner division of labor between master advisors and their planning staff. “That bridge we crossed is critical,” Del Col says.

The company has also created a way of taking inputs from clients and translating that into investments using a high degree of automation.

“It’s not as broad a universe of offerings,” he adds.

Pomeranz said in a release that he likes all of the resources that United Capital brings to the table.

“Not since the mid-90s have I been this excited about my firm’s growth potential and our opportunity to help investors,” he says. United Capital is changing our industry and they reflect what I believe to be the direction the advisory space is going, not where it has been.”

Pomeranz uses Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services as his custodian and Morningstar Office as his portfolio accounting software provider.

He says his shows are a bit different from his competitors’, emphasizing interviews with economists, authors and CNBC commentators.