Cetera announced that Joseph and Pamela Malara have joined the Cetera Investment Services platform.
The Malaras are an experienced husband-and-wife financial advisory team with approximately $180 million in client assets that provides wealth management services through two banks in Louisiana: the Bank of St. Francisville, a local bank with $135 million in total assets and one location in St. Francisville, LA; and Peoples Bank of Pointe Coupee Parish, a regional bank serving the New Roads, Livonia, Central and Baton Rouge, LAmarkets with $285 million in total assets.
The Malara team works with approximately 700 retail clients, providing financial planning, retirement, insurance and investment management services.
The team joined from Investment Professionals, as it was being acquired by Ameriprise.
The Malaras plan to pursue growth in holistic planning and advisory by leveraging Cetera's services and technology.
Joseph Malara said, "In making the move to Cetera, our clients' needs were our primary consideration. The Cetera team has shown a superior commitment to customer service throughout our very smooth and quick transition process. Its technology platform will enable us to enhance our client service capabilities with greater efficiency and grow our practice."
Pamela Malara said, "When it comes to the guidance and service we provide our clients, we hold ourselves to extremely high standards. With that in mind, we have been very impressed with the service mentality, resources and attention to detail we have seen in all our interactions with Cetera to date. Cetera's longstanding expertise in supporting financial institutions-based practices like ours has already been evident in the consultative training sessions in which we have taken part, and in the seamless transition support we have received."
LeAnn Rummel, President of Cetera Investment Services, said, "Joe and Pam Malara have built a strong and growing practice by serving as a consistent source of sound, independent financial guidance to their clients for more than 20 years. They exemplify the client-first, service-oriented approach that Cetera seeks to model, and we are thrilled that they have joined our platform. Client service is the underlying tenet of Cetera's Advice-Centric Experience® model, which envisions a profession driven by high-caliber, planning-based advice for clients. In addition to a client-first orientation, the Malara team's decision was driven by the same value proposition that has brought so many bank and credit union-based wealth management programs to work with us, including our ability to help advisors meet their growth goals."
