2011 Q1 Earnings: LPL Profits Jump 91.7%; Founder, President to Sell Big Stakes

LPL Financial Inc. (LPLA) on Tuesday reported first-quarter 2011 profits of $49.0 million, 91.7% higher than $25.6 million in profits it reported a year ago. In addition, LPL, the largest independent broker-dealer, announced in an SEC filing that the company’s founder and president were selling large portions of their stock holdings as part of a 6.2 million share offering.

Earnings per share totaled $0.43, and adjusted EPS totaled $0.52, compared with the average EPS expectations of $0.48 as estimated by 11 analysts surveyed by Yahoo! Finance.

Revenues came in 17.5% higher at $873.9 million versus $743.4 million a year ago, according to LPL’s Q1 2011 earnings release.

In a separate release, LPL announced a secondary offering of up to 6.2 million shares of its common stock by “certain minority stockholders.” The company itself is not selling any shares in this offering, and will not receive any of the proceeds from the shares of common stock sold.

LPL’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that company founder Todd Robinson and President and Chief Operating Officer Esther Stearns each plan to sell about one-third of their common stock in the company.

Robinson, who owns 2.7% of LPL’s stock, is selling 981,148 of his 2.9 million share ownership. Stearns is selling 214,400 of her 765,816 shares. In midafternoon trading on Tuesday, LPLA shares were selling at around $34.53 per share, which would put Robinson's take at $33.9 million and Stearns' at $7.4 million.

Also selling big stakes are Goldman Sachs, which has all of its 1 million of LPLA shares on offer, and Pacific Life Insurance Co., which also is selling its entire ownership of stock in the company, at 2.65 million shares. Goldman’s ownership stake is 1% and Pac Life’s is 2.4%.