$1 Billion Harvest Wealth Team Leaves Merrill Lynch to Join Cetera (2025)

Former Merrill Lynch team, led by industry veterans Dean Packard, Scott Lowder and Vytas Maginnis, serves corporate executives and their families with unique wealth harvesting methodology

Maryland-based group embraces independent model to serve its clients' needs with more agility and efficacy

LOS ANGELES, June 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cetera Financial Group, one of America's largest networks of financial professionals, announced today that Harvest Wealth, an independent wealth management firm that manages nearly $1 billion in assets, has affiliated with Cetera Advisor Networks. The team was formerly affiliated with Merrill Lynch and is led by Dean Packard, CFP^®, CIMA^®, founding partner and advisor, Scott Lowder, founding partner and advisor, and Vytas Maginnis, founding partner and advisor. Harvest Wealth specializes in serving corporate executives and their families, helping them navigate their complex financial needs using a sophisticated wealth harvesting strategy designed to help maximize outcomes for clients.

• About Dean Packard, CFP^®, CIMA^®, founding partner and advisor: Packard launched his financial services career in 1984. He joined the corporate executive services team at Smith Barney, where he mastered the art of managing corporate executive wealth, maximizing liquidity events to pursue optimal financial outcomes for clients. His focus is on helping corporate plan participants integrate their equity awards and other benefits into a cohesive wealth management strategy. He is the architect of the firm's wealth harvesting strategy, which helps cultivate sustainability and longevity while providing for client needs.
• About Scott Lowder, founding partner and advisor. Lowder began his financial services career in 1998, teaming with Packard. Both avid tennis players, they met on a tennis court, where Lowder was inspired by Packard's passion for his career and his clients. Lowder accepted a job at Packard's firm and the two have worked side-by-side since. The duo joined Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in 2006, where Lowder helped mold the harvesting strategy, and the team started advising more clients, and serving an increasing number of high-net-worth clients.
• About Vytas Maginnis, founding partner and advisor: Packard and Lowder formed Harvest Wealth Management with their third partner, Vytas Maginnis, who started in an administrative role and worked his way up into leadership. His contributions have further enhanced the harvesting strategy, adding layers of sophistication and efficacy. His specialty is making complex financial concepts accessible and providing clients the information they need to make financial decisions that support their wealth management strategy. The three partners have a shared appreciation of the full demographic of clients and excel in serving executives' complex financial needs.

"As the financial services industry has evolved, we have witnessed a gradual misalignment of interests where in many cases, client needs are not always coming first," Packard said. "By forming Harvest Wealth and affiliating with Cetera Advisor Networks, we are empowered to prioritize client needs above all else, elevating client interests as our top priority. Converting our practice to an independent model ensures that we can serve our clients in the best manner possible without restrictions or limitations on the solutions, strategies and guidance we provide to pursue success for our clients."

Packard continued, "We are energized and inspired by Cetera's commitment and dedication to these same values – and to helping us achieve our business goals. Cetera's advanced technologies, tools and resources will empower us to serve our clients even more holistically and identify new ways to optimize and grow our practice to new heights. Cetera's established marketing and growth resources are industry-leading and helped us envision a better future for our practice and for our clients. We are proud to call Cetera home and optimistic about what's to come for Harvest Wealth, our team of financial professionals and our clients."

"Today, more than ever, financial professionals are seeking a professional home capable of supporting their growth aspirations where they are supported yet maintain the flexibility and autonomy to operate independently to best serve their clients," said Adam Antoniades, Cetera's Chief Executive Officer. "Harvest Wealth has found that unique and empowering balance at Cetera, and our shared vision and values will lead to better financial advice and outcomes for countless individuals and families. We welcome the Harvest Wealth team to Cetera and look forward to many prosperous years serving clients and collaborating to achieve the team's aspirations for their practice. We are seeing an accelerating trend as more billion-dollar advisory teams are migrating away from wirehouses to a more personal and independent model like Cetera's and expect this will continue."

Harvest Wealth's hallmark is its unique harvesting strategy, which is designed to cultivate sustainability and longevity while providing for client needs by harvesting the fruit of their investment portfolio without having to sell quality investments. That key principle informs Harvest Wealth's asset allocation and investment strategy, as the team looks to position client portfolios in high-quality dividend securities that generate a reasonable flow of new money each year. The harvesting strategy serves clients across the spectrum of client demographics in both the accumulation and decumulation phases.

The addition of Harvest Wealth is the latest recruiting win for Cetera, which attracted more than $1.1 billion in May 2022 after a strong first quarter of 2022.

For more information about Harvest Wealth, visit https://www.harvestwealth.com/.

About Cetera Financial Group®
Cetera Financial Group (Cetera) is a leading financial services firm whose purpose is to enable the delivery of best-in-class financial advice to as many Americans as possible. Cetera empowers its financial professional communities to help clients achieve their version of financial wellbeing through the Advice-Centric Experience^®. Cetera proudly serves independent financial professionals, tax professionals, banks and credit unions in providing wide-ranging financial planning and wealth management services.

Cetera oversees approximately $353 billion in assets under administration and $122 billion in assets under management, as of December 31, 2021.

Visit www.cetera.com, and follow Cetera on LinkedIn, Twitterand Facebook.

"Cetera Financial Group" refers to the network of independent retail firms encompassing, among others, Cetera Advisors LLC, Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, Cetera Investment Services LLC (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions or Cetera Investors), Cetera Financial Specialists LLC, and First Allied Securities, Inc. All firms are members FINRA/SIPC. Located at: 655 W. Broadway, 11^th Floor, San Diego, CA 92101.

Individuals affiliated with Cetera firms are either Registered Representatives who offer only brokerage services and receive transaction-based compensation (commissions), Investment Adviser Representatives who offer only investment advisory services and receive fees based on assets, or both Registered Representatives and Investment Adviser Representatives, who can offer both types of services.

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SOURCE Cetera Financial Group