Even towards the end of 2018, LPL Financial keeps adding new wealth management firms to its platforms.

LPL Financial 
Wellesley Financial Planners, a business based in New Jersey, has joined the broker-dealer and corporate registered investment advisor platforms of LPL Financial, a continuing trend of wealth firms migrating to that organization.

Prior to this, Wellesley’s advisors, overseeing about $400 million of assets, were with Cadaret Grant.

The group is led by Greg Spicer, who founded Red Bank, New Jersey-based Wellesley Financial Planners as an independent practice in 1984. His team has grown to include five advisors under the Wellesley name and four independent advisors under his supervision. 

“The industry is in a period of consolidation and acquisitions, and that can leave planners with a degree of uncertainty. We decided LPL was the best fit for our business, in part for its size and scale. They are committed to leveraging their scale to invest in technology and resources, which was a huge draw for us. We’re already seeing more efficiency and less paperwork. The home office supervision was another big plus. It relieves back office work so we can have more time in front of our clients,” Spicer said.

A run of wealth management firms have moved onto LPL’s platforms in recent weeks, often involving relatively new firms formed by breakaway teams from larger organizations who find they need back-up support for a variety of services so that they can concentrate on client-facing activity. These moves are part of a wider shift in the wealth management industry handling an expected $30 trillion inter-generational wealth transfer in the next few years. To see examples of joiners to the LPL platform, click here and here.

The editorial advisory board of this news service and others recently debated what is meant by "independence" in wealth management.