A former employee of an RIA bought by Carson Group is alleging age discrimination in a lawsuit contending her position was eliminated after being required to train her younger replacement.
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In a lawsuit moved into federal court in Michigan this week, Andrea Bethune accused Carson Group of forcing her out of her job at a Saginaw-based firm called Abbs Retirement Planning Advisors so “it could staff the office with younger female employees who were under forty (40) years old.” The suit, originally filed in Michigan state court, said Carson Group brought in a woman who was about 20 years younger than Bethune, now 58, shortly after it took over control of Abbs Retirement Planning in January 2025, about a year following the firm’s official acquisition.
Bethune, who served in an administrative assistant-type of role, was required to train the younger woman, identified in the suit as Justine Reinhardt. By November 2025, according to the suit, Bethune was told her title had been changed to client experience advocate. In January this year, she learned her position had been eliminated, according to the suit.
The suit says that Bethune “was the oldest female employee, being twenty (20) to thirty (30) years older than the substantially younger female staff.”
Carson Group declined to comment and Abbs Retirement Planning did not return a request for comment.
READ MORE: Ron Carson stepping down as CEO of Carson Group
A pattern in age discrimination cases in wealth management
Bethune’s lawyer, Victor Mastromarco of The Mastromarco Firm in Saginaw, said the case presents all the hallmarks of age discrimination.
“They come in and they take over the company and move this young woman in and they make my client train her, even though she has absolutely no experience,” Mastromarco said. “She didn’t meet any of the requirements in the posting that they had, but they hired her for the position and let my client go.”
Mastromarco said Bethune was employed in essentially an administrative assistant role before her title was changed and her position was eliminated. The suit says the reasons Bethune was given for being let go “did not actually motivate the decision, and/or were too insignificant to warrant the action taken.”
Age discrimination claims are far from uncommon in the wealth management industry. In November 2024, for instance, RBC Wealth Management was ordered by a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel to pay $9.7 million to a former advisor who had accused it of discriminating against her “based on age and sex.” Carson Group itself was charged with discrimination in an April 2024 lawsuit by a former chief marketing officer who later dropped the case following allegations that she had falsified her medical records.
READ MORE: How an advisor M&A deal gone wrong presents a cautionary tale
Don’t assume large aggregators will keep things the same
The latest suit against Carson Group also sheds light on the disruption small advisory firms risk seeing when selling their businesses to large aggregators. Jodie Papike, the CEO of industry recruiting firm Cross-Search, said there are plenty of instances when the owners of a small firm come away from a deal with a large purchaser more or less assuming their employee team and other aspects of their business would stay intact.
Sometimes they are sorely disappointed, said Papike, who wasn’t involved with the parties in the Carson Group lawsuit.
“If you sell your firm, the new owner typically has different ideas about what they want to do with the business and of what makes the most sense for the business,” said Papike. “That’s especially true if you are selling to a big firm.”
With nearly $60 billion in client assets and 650 advisors at 150 partner firms, Carson Group counts as one of the larger players in the RIA business. The firm has more than tripled its asset tally since its announcement in 2021 that it was selling a nearly 30% stake in itself to Bain Capital, a private equity firm cofounded by ultrawealthy Utah former U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney.
Papike said all sellers to large aggregators should be sure to specify in writing which parts of their businesses they want to make sure remain in place following the sale. Many times, owners will exit negotiations with a “warm and fuzzy” feeling and a false impression about how much control they’ve really relinquished.
“But anytime someone is looking to sell their business, it’s always best to get things in writing when you are being courted,” Papike said. “After that point of time, you really don’t have any say or any control, and you have to assume the new owners are doing things how they want.”
