As Osaic consolidation winds down, are job cuts on the horizon?

Osaic Inc., one of the largest broker-dealer networks in the industry with 11,600 financial advisors, may be facing job losses by early next year to its 2,500 home office staff and support workers, now that its 14-month consolidation is coming to an end, according to senior industry sources who spoke confidentially to InvestmentNews.

Near the end of September, industry news website CityWire reported that Osaic was making job cuts that affected 30 employees, or a little more than 1 percent of the broker-dealer and registered investment advisor network’s staff.

Senior industry sources recently told InvestmentNews that Osaic could be facing more job losses, particularly as jobs at broker-dealers overlap. Cutting jobs reduces the costs of operating those firms, a key reason to make acqusitions of large wealth management businesses. 

“When last year it was announced that Osaic was going through this consolidation process, it would therefore free up positions in the central functions of a broker-dealer, from chief financial officer to marketing,” one senior industry executive said. “When you consolidate in the brokerage industry, you significantly reduce staff.”

Another executive said he expected the reductions eventually to total at least 125 employees, or 5 percent of the workers at Osaic.

This was to be expected as Osaic, formerly Advisor Group, is reaching the conclusion of its consolidation of more than half-a-dozen firms into one platform and one brand, those executive said. 

An Osaic spokesperson did not comment about the report in CityWire of 30 job cuts at the brokerage network.

Osaic has integrated eight broker-dealers into Osaic Wealth Inc., formerly Royal Alliance Associates Inc., in the last year and a half. Over that time, it also acquired the wealth management business of Lincoln National Corp., with roughly 1,400 financial advisors.  

“We look forward to integrating Lincoln Financial’s wealth business in early 2025,” wrote Dimple Shah, executive vice president, Advisor Growth and Platform Solutions at Osaic, in an email to InvestmentNews.

Shah did not rule out the potential for “duplicative roles” to be eliminated in the future, according to her email

“With this rapid pace of change, there is always the potential for attrition and elimination of duplicative roles as natural outcomes and we are confident that our staffing model will foster a seamless experience for advisors, elevate the advisor-client relationship, and drive innovation faster than anyone else in the industry,” Shah wrote.

“Osaic may try to do any job redundancies quietly over the next three to six months,” the second industry executive said. “Osaic at this stage would want to actively avoid any company-wide announcements about this.”  

The firm had a management reorganization over the summer, seeing Jen Roche, the marketing executive and architect of the Osaic rebranding, jump unexpectedly to rival LPL Financial, and is also losing some large teams of financial advisors to rivals like LPL, the executive noted.

Osaic this month said that Kristy Britt has been appointed as its new chief financial officer. Most recently she worked as head of finance for the operations and technology organization at Thomson Reuters.