LPL Financial has finalized its purchase of Commonwealth Financial Network and expects to retain most of the former rival broker-dealer's roughly 3,000 financial advisors, who work with about $305 billion of assets.
“It’s official: Commonwealth is now part of the LPL community,” LPL CEO Rich Steinmeier said in a post on LinkedIn early Friday.
“As with any transaction or competitive recruiting event, some advisors will prioritize differently …,” Steinmeier said on a call with analysts late Thursday. “We continue to feel confident about our ability to capture 90%, which does mean we understand that 10% of the advisors will make a different choice and go somewhere else.”
The full onboarding and conversion of the expected group of about 2,700 advisors is set for the fourth quarter of 2026.
About 80 advisors have moved from Commonwealth to other firms since April, including Raymond James, Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments and Cambridge Investment Research, according to data compiled by AdvizorPro and shared with ThinkAdvisor.
In addition, 10 advisors have already switched their broker-deal affiliation to LPL (ahead of the Q4 '26 planned onboarding) and 26 chose to move to an RIA-only model or drop their BD affiliation, AdvizorPro data shows.
With the close of the deal on Friday, Commonwealth CEO Wayne Bloom is joining LPL’s management committee. Later this month, some 70 Commonwealth advisors and home office staff will attend LPL's Focus conference in San Diego. Bloom and the Commonwealth management team continue to lead the boutique firm.
“Today, Commonwealth begins its next chapter … while retaining our brand and elevating our respected service experience,” Bloom said in a statement Friday. “We’re preserving what our advisors value most about Commonwealth — our deeply connected culture and the personalization that enables our advisors to deliver meaningful value to their clients.”
Friday’s news comes four months after LPL said it was buying the rival independent broker-dealer $2.7 billion in cash. At the time of the announcement, LPL said in an investor presentation that the estimated advisor onboarding and integration costs of buying Commonwealth would be $485 million.
Updates on Other Deals
In July, LPL “completed the conversion of Atria Wealth Solutions,” Steinmeier explained in his remarks on Thursday’s second-quarter earnings call. “This is no small feat when you consider that Atria had seven distinct broker-dealers that use multiple custodians.”
LPL is “still finalizing results, but anticipates asset retention landing at approximately 82%, ahead of our initial target of 80%,” he noted.
When LPL first announced this deal in early 2024, Atria had some 2,400 advisors with ties to roughly 150 banks and credit unions that managed about $100 billion of brokerage and advisory assets.
LPL also expects to onboard the broker-dealer and investment advisory services of First Horizon Bank by Sept. 30. Retention of First Horizon — which has about 120 financial advisors managing roughly $17 billion in client assets — “remains industry leading at 98% for the second quarter and over the last 12 months,” according to the CEO.
Q2 Earnings
LPL posted net income of $273 million for the second quarter of 2025, up 12% from a year ago. Adjusted earnings per share were $4.51, beating Zacks Equity Research estimates and representing a year-over-year jump of 16%.
While revenues rose 31% from last year to $3.84 billion, total expenses grew 33% to $3.47 billion.
LPL Financial’s total brokerage and advisory assets stood at $1.92 trillion, a jump of 28% from Q2 2024, and the firm says it supports over 29,000 advisors and the wealth management practices of roughly 1,100 financial institutions.
Total net new assets were $20.5 billion in Q2, representing 5% annualized growth rate. Recruited assets, though, were $18 billion, down 24% from a year ago; over the past 12 months, recruited assets totaled $161 billion.
Shown in photo: Wayne Bloom and Rich Steinmeier
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