Why These Commonwealth Advisors Are Happily Giving LPL a Chance

“We are thrilled to see so many Commonwealth advisors choose to continue their journey with Commonwealth and LPL,” added Scott Posner, managing director of business development, in a statement. “We remain very positive about retention, and have experienced first-hand the wonderful community this firm has built with advisors who are passionate about supporting their clients and each other.”

The spokesperson also connected ThinkAdvisor with three Commonwealth advisor team leaders who all said they are happily giving LPL a chance to prove they are the right destination for fast-growing wealth management practices. One of the advisors has been affiliated with Commonwealth for more than 30 years, while another had been affiliated with Commonwealth for only a matter of months prior to the acquisition announcement.

What they have in common is a sense that LPL’s leadership has been clear and consistent in its messaging to Commonwealth teams, including in its public pledge to preserve Commonwealth’s industry-leading service experience and to provide a seamless client transition process. They also shared significant excitement about accessing LPL’s technology and legacy planning resources.

Below are some highlights drawn from our discussion with the three advisors, edited for length and clarity.

Tom Bartholomew, President and CEO of Bartholomew & Co. Inc.

THINKADVISOR: Can you tell us about the founding of your firm and how long you've been affiliated with Commonwealth?

TOM BARTHOLOMEW: Yes, for us it’s been more than 30 years of affiliation with Commonwealth, with the firm having been founded in 1994 on the Commonwealth platform. It was actually still a pretty new operation at that point, with I believe just one single office in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Beforehand, I had been associated with a major bank, and I was able to use my skillset in business development to become one of their early top producers. It’s really been a great ride for us, with steady growth over time both in terms of our advisor team and the clients we serve.

THINKADVISOR: Did you ever have a time when you considered a change of broker-dealer?

BARTHOLOMEW: No, and it’s a funny story. When I joined, my intention was to make Commonwealth a temporary stop after leaving the banking world before founding my own broker-dealer.

Well, I may have been a good producer, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I learned quickly that founding a new broker-dealer was going to be a huge lift and take me away from what I loved doing — winning and serving clients.

I was actually very frank about that with the Commonwealth leadership at the time, and they were fine with my idea. I think they knew I’d probably end up staying. Either way, it pretty quickly became obvious to me that I could do a better job for my clients by sticking with Commonwealth, and that’s remained the case for more than 30 years now.

THINKADVISOR: What was it like to learn the news of the LPL acquisition? How has the process unfolded so far?

BARTHOLOMEW: It was a big surprise, but I can tell you that my experience to date has been a positive one. They’ve been very consistent so far in terms of their vision, messaging and execution — including the messaging coming from Rich Steinmeier at the top.

I’ve had a meeting with Rich, and I think he is sincere. He’s very believable in terms of the vision he is laying out for us, and I’ve found my service contact to be the same — very open and easy to communicate with. When I’ve asked questions, I’ve gotten answers really fast. I don't have to call them twice. That sort of thing builds confidence.

THINKADVISOR: What are you most optimistic about? Does anything worry you?  

BARTHOLOMEW: We’re excited about getting new tools and technology and putting them in the hands of our advisors and clients. There’s always new technology coming out, and it’s a challenge as a smaller organization to stay on top of everything, so if we can get that support from LPL, that’ll be a big plus.

With respect to their overall platform, I’ve been impressed by what I’ve seen so far. Our advisors and staff have told me the same thing.

Of course, we always worry about the client transition process, but again, their messaging on the importance of a seamless client transition has remained very consistent.

That’s really important, because we’ve got a sizable practice with a lot of client accounts and a pretty significant amount of complexity that has developed over 30-plus years. So, manually repapering everything wouldn’t exactly be a fun experience, especially after so much time with Commonwealth.

It’s funny, because for clients, this isn’t really registering as a big event. Their relationship is with Bartholomew & Company and our advisors. For them, it’s not really a matter of LPL vs. Commonwealth. I can honestly tell you that, in all the client conversations I’ve had about this topic since the beginning of April, not one of them had lasted more than 90 seconds.

At the end of the day, I have great confidence in Commonwealth’s leaders like Wayne Bloom, and I think they’ll make this work.

Rachel Roney, partner and branch manager at Michael Roberts Associates Inc.

THINKADVISOR: Can you tell us about the founding of your firm and how long you've been affiliated with Commonwealth?

RACHEL RONEY: I cut my teeth in the financial services industry in various roles on Wall Street, and the first four or five years of my career were characterized by a rapid-fire series of acquisitions, so I’ve been through this kind of thing before.

After that, I worked for the home office of my former broker-dealer for five years before moving over to become a financial advisor myself, so I like to joke that I also know how the sausage is made. My practice was based there until 2018, when that broker-dealer was acquired by a private equity buyer. That event drove us to consider other options, and we selected Commonwealth as the top destination.

Given my background, I was in a good position to help our team assess the right broker-dealer, and Commonwealth just stood out for its independence and commitment to client service.

The big irony here is that the original broker-dealer that we left was itself acquired by LPL just last year, so it feels a little bit like this was meant to be. I’m now going to be working alongside some of the same professionals that I used to, so it’s a bit of a full-circle kind of thing.

THINKADVISOR: What was the atmosphere like in the office when you learned about the Commonwealth-LPL acquisition? How has the process unfolded so far?

RONEY: It certainly came as a surprise, and I’m sure you’re probably hearing that sentiment from other Commonwealth advisors you’re speaking with.

Having been through acquisitions before, I knew it was important to pause, take a beat, and try to remove some of the emotion. I’m also really fortunate in that I’m in a team environment in my branch, with four partner-owners complemented by an associate advisor and administrative support staff. We were able to sit down together and really process what this would mean for us.

Meanwhile, we all dove into the webcasts and introductions LPL was offering, looking into things like their technology platform and their approach to model management. For me, personally, those resources have been really helpful in building a significant level of comfort with LPL’s offering and our ability to continue to serve our clients at the highest level.

I also had the chance to hear Rich Steinmeier and members of the whole leadership team make a presentation at an event in Tucson, Arizona, and that was really informative. So was the ability to interact directly with LPL’s technology staff and its advisor platform at that event.

In the end, we all concluded together that staying and making the move to LPL was the right decision.

THINKADVISOR: Has the volume of external recruiter calls increased for you and your colleagues?

RONEY: Oh yes, without a doubt. There’s always been a fairly steady stream of calls coming in, but this period has been much more intense. We’re pretty good at screening those calls and just staying focused on our mission.

I’ll tell you a funny story about that. Since we’re in a branch office setting with four advisors, we are able to use shared administrative support staff who help screen incoming calls. We’ve had a few situations where an external recruiter has ended up calling the same line three or four times in a row and reaching the same support staffer while trying to get in touch with our four advisors.

It shows that they’re really just throwing everything at the wall and trying to get in front of us at this moment, but it doesn’t give you a lot of confidence in what they’re trying to sell, frankly.

THINKADVISOR: How have your clients reacted to the news, if at all? Did you do proactive outreach on all this?

RONEY: That’s gone really well, but we’ve made a conscious effort to get out in front of the news.

Our goal was to make sure that we had an introductory phone call with as many clients as possible, focusing especially on our biggest and longest-tenured clients. It was a lot of calls, but the effort was worth it.

The primary reaction we got was actually pretty muted. Our clients care about their relationship with us and the service we provide. They don’t actually care that much about what’s under the hood, so to speak, as long as the level of engagement and service we are bringing to them meets their expectations.

They did value the messaging about LPL striving for a seamless transition process. They’re not worried about a change in custodian, assuming the process goes smoothly.

Kevin Visconti, registered principal at Diversified Capital Management

THINKADVISOR: Can you tell us about the founding of your firm and how long you've been affiliated with Commonwealth?

KEVIN VISCONTI: Sure. I got my start directly out of college at the Rochester Institute of Technology selling insurance, literally going door to door. I actually didn’t even walk at my college graduation so that I could start my training immediately.

It wasn’t exactly fulfilling work, but it did get me licensed, which gave me the opportunity to work for a number of banks after I had moved back to Syracuse. I worked under some great financial advisors during that time, but through a series of acquisitions my position was eventually eliminated.

I had the opportunity to either become a branch manager or a financial advisor, and thankfully I had a good mentor at the time who steered me in the direction of being an advisor. He told me, you can be a branch manager and make a good living, but everyone’s problems are your problems. As an advisor, you can work for yourself and kind of control your own destiny, and I’ve always enjoyed that.

That led to about a 10-year stint working as an advisor on the Cadaret, Grant & Co. brokerage platform. It’s funny because Cadaret Grant was among the broker-dealers LPL acquired as part of its broader deal to acquire Atria.

When that deal happened, we did a full review process, and while Commonwealth came out on top, LPL was our clear second choice. So, it’s interesting in that sense, because we had already deeply vetted LPL’s platform and capabilities prior to the deal being announced.

Ultimately, we’re very comfortable with what they’re bringing to the table, especially in the context of also acquiring Commonwealth.

THINKADVISOR: That’s interesting, so the vibe in the office must be pretty optimistic, then?

VISCONTI: Yes, I would say so. The only thing we were initially perhaps a bit concerned about was asking our clients to go through another repapering process so soon after switching to Commonwealth’s platform, but LPL has pledged to make that as seamless a process as possible.

We’re optimistic that they’ll be able to deliver on that promise.

THINKADVISOR: What has the client reaction been like?

VISCONTI: Very muted. I’ve probably done close to 30 reviews in the last two or three weeks with my clients, and I’ve been asked about the acquisition maybe two or three times.

And we have a good story to tell, as I noted. We’ve already done the deep due diligence on LPL and we’re able to point to benefits like the technology they’re bringing to the table and the fact that our practice is going to be based at a firm that’s going to be around for the long term.

THINKADVISOR: Has the volume of external recruiter calls increased for you and your colleagues?

VISCONTI: Yes, and a lot of the messaging from recruiters and in the media as well has been about the possibility of getting a bigger check by going elsewhere, but for us, that is just beside the point.

We’re not going to successfully navigate this period — or any period — by just putting our wallet first. If you’re in this business and your immediate compensation is the only thing you’re thinking about, that’s just shortsighted.

I could see things being different if you were an advisor at the end of your career without a good succession plan in place for your practice. Maybe in that situation you just take the bigger check and move on, but I just turned 41 and I’m thinking about the long term.

From left: Tom Bartholomew, Rachel Roney and Kevin Visconti. Courtesy photos