LPL-Commonwealth Story 'Isn't Finished': Cetera CEO

LPL, for its part, has said it is on target to retain its goal of 90% of Commonwealth’s advisors and has pledged to retain Commonwealth’s culture of high-touch client service and responsive leadership within its much larger organization.

“I would agree that the LPL-Commonwealth story was one of the biggest industry headlines of the year,” Durbin said. “I would also posit that the story isn’t finished. The deal has closed, but the reporting out there indicates that the actual transition process for their books to move to LPL’s platform will be happening at some point in mid-2026.”

The transition will represent another milestone for Commonwealth advisors who have elected to stay at LPL, Durbin suggested, potentially resulting in additional team moves. Likewise, Commonwealth teams that stick around for 2026 could pursue a transition in future years.

“We’ve not been shy about going after great Commonwealth talent, but I do want to say that, at the end of the day, this is a collegial industry and a lot of the leaders of these firms know one another well and are friendly,” Durbin said. “My personal view is that the secular trend towards independence is unrelenting, and I think the pie is just going to keep growing. That’s going to benefit multiple firms and their many stakeholders.”

Here are some additional highlights from our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

THINKADVISOR: To start, can you give us a high-level update for the end of 2025? How’s the year gone overall?

MIKE DURBIN: We feel really good about the 2025 fiscal year that we're getting set to close out here in a few weeks. We’re really confident about how we are putting capital to work and our ability to be good stewards of capital in this environment.

There’s been some continued volatility this year, but the fact is that wealth creation continues in this country. We’re also experiencing some big changes, whether that’s the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act or the many other policy questions we're facing here in the United States and around the world. Think about all the changes from the Secure Act to the tax reforms. It's a lot for people to take in.

This kind of environment brings challenges, but it also puts a big premium on advice — especially on the planning process and the relationship between advisor and client. Clients want to know what new opportunities they may have to make smart tax moves, to do estate planning, to make tax-free gifts, etc. Advice is just so valuable in an environment like this. People are hearing all the time about alternative investments, stablecoins, annuities in 401(k)s, you name it. That’s a tailwind for advice.

If you combine that with Cetera’s unique value proposition of five distinct channels and the ability for our advisors to work with like-minded professionals in a tailored community, it’s a winning proposition. We’re seeing that play out with our recruiting success and our very high retention rate, which is at about 97% or higher.

Finally, we feel really good about the momentum we have in terms of both organic growth and inorganic growth, especially the former. Our No. 1 mission is to continue to fuel the growth of the existing advisors we have, and to keep them happy and secure on the platform. It sounds trivial, but that’s a challenging thing to do in such a competitive landscape.

THINKADVISOR: In what ways are you working to balance the opportunities between organic and inorganic growth? At the same time, how do you respond to evolving client expectations around service?

DURBIN: It’s a good question, and we have to be very strategic about that. I can point to moves that we have made like the acquisition of Avantax and the acquisition of Securian’s wealth business and trust company as two big steps we’ve taken to empower our advisors with the scale and capabilities they need to win and keep great clients.

The way we discuss this internally is to talk about building a “super hybrid firm.” So, not only are we building a platform that supports fee-only RIA business and commission-based brokerage business, but we’re also filling out that value proposition with capabilities in areas like insurance, long-term care policies, tax planning and preparation, estate planning and execution, etc.

At the end of the day, the winning value proposition in 2025 and beyond is one that's rooted in a holistic financial planning process, and if you're going to have a good financial plan, you need to actually deliver solutions to the full set of needs. That set of needs is different, too, if we’re talking about the mass affluent or the ultra-high-net-worth clientele. We want to excel across the board, and we’re making the investments to do so.

THINKADVISOR: Taking a step back, would you agree that the LPL-Commonwealth deal was one of the biggest headlines in wealth management in 2025? What are your thoughts about where that deal stands today and how you’ve responded to it in terms of your recruiting strategy?

DURBIN: Yes, I would probably agree that the biggest single piece of industry news of the year, in a way, was LPL buying Commonwealth. You and I have had several conversations about this since the deal was announced, and as you know, we’ve made no bones about the fact that we’d love to have as many Commonwealth advisors come over to our platform as we can get. That's true for us and for a number of other platforms, so the competition is healthy and alive.

Taking a step back, I would say that we are on track to have a historic record year of recruiting at Cetera, and that's complementing the acquisitions we have made this year. I don’t have the exact number to hand, but we’re looking at between a 60% and 65% increase year over year in recruitment. I'm very proud of that.

But you should also understand that, yes, the Commonwealth story is a big one and it’s pretty symbolic in a lot of ways, but at Cetera, our recruitment is coming from a broad swath of other firms and other models, too. It's not all Commonwealth or LPL by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly Commonwealth firms have been less than 50% of the overall recruiting.

That broad base of recruiting success, I believe, reflects the work we have done to embrace multiple channels and communities — multiple affiliation models that are really interesting to a wide range of firms. We’ve actually had a Commonwealth win or imminent onboarding across all five of our channels. That, to me, is the proof point of our model.

Something else I’m proud of is what we’ve heard from the Commonwealth teams that have come in, which is that this new environment is like what they had at Commonwealth. What they mean is that they can draw on resources from all over Cetera, but they’re also working in a community of maybe 200 or 250 advisors with their own dedicated leadership, dedicated resources, dedicated service escalation lines, etc.

THINKADVISOR: Does anything worry you that could cause meaningful disruption in 2026 for Cetera or for wealth management more generally? For example, do you think Cetera and the industry in general is doing enough to make sure the big wave of pending advisor retirements and exits aren’t disruptive?

DURBIN: I do think about that a lot, for sure, but I’d say I am a below-median worrier when it comes to that issue in particular.

One reason why is that I’ve been so impressed by the way the CFP certification program has been instantiated in dozens of universities now as part of their undergraduate curriculum. It shows that the wealth management industry is finally getting the word out that this is a great career path that has nothing to do with the Wolf of Wall Street idea.

I think we’re finally getting the message out there to the public that there are great roles in this industry for all different types of people and personalities. There are great careers for English majors and history majors, you know, not just finance majors, and we're seeing it play out.

At Cetera, we have built a new advisor onboarding program that started with and built off of the Securian acquisition. We’re specifically out there in the community looking for undergraduate talent as new potential hires. We bring them in and give them mentorship, education, rewards and recognition, and compensation. It's a really disciplined plan compared to the old-school way of just throwing people into cold calling and building a book. That gives me a lot of optimism.

More broadly, this is where I think the topic of AI comes up, because with technology, the relatively fixed number of advisors that we have seen for years and years now should be able to substantially increase its reach and impact. I believe that the planning technologies that are coming online today should let this fixed number of advisors do a lot more for a far bigger number of households, so that’s also exciting.

I believe the best advisors 25 years from now aren’t going to be the best money managers. They’re going to be the best coaches and behavioral management professionals who can serve clients in a truly consultative way.

Photo courtesy LPL Financial