Giant Cambridge group in Pennsylvania bolts to LPL

LPL Financial appears to have scored a big win in Pennsylvania and has recruited Conte Wealth Advisors, a longtime affiliate of LPL competitor Cambridge Investment Research Inc.

Near Harrisburg, Pa., Conte Wealth reportedly works with $1.4 billion in client assets and has 20 financial advisors under its roof, according to a senior industry executive who spoke privately to InvestmentNews about the matter.

Anthony “Tony” Conte, the firm’s CEO, has been registered with Cambridge Investment Research since 2009, according to his BrokerCheck profile. The website for Conte Wealth Advisors on Tuesday said it was “temporarily offline while we make a few improvements.”

The website also said that the firm’s “securities and advisory services” were offered through LPL Financial, boilerplate disclosure firms are required to make in their marketing and indicating Conte Wealth was not working with LPL.

It’s not clear why Conte Wealth made the move, but it’s been a highly competitive market the past two years to recruit financial advisors.

The industry-wide fight for advisors working with Commonwealth Financial Network, which LPL bought last year for $2.7 billion in cash, has apparently spilled over to the rest of the independent advisor and wealth manager market.

Tony Conte did not return a phone call on Tuesday to comment, and a representative from Cambridge Investment Research also did not return a call to comment. A spokesperson for LPL likewise did not return a call to comment.

Both LPL Financial, the broker-dealer arm of the publicly traded LPL Financial Holdings Inc., and Cambridge Investment Research, which is the largest privately held independent broker-dealer remaining in the industry, are highly successful in recruiting and retaining financial advisors.

InvestmentNews reported this month that Cambridge Investment Research added 189 advisors to its independent platform in the first six months of 2026, bringing approximately $6.8 billion in assets under advisement and $55.9 million in annualized revenue.

The results mark a step up from the same period last year, when Cambridge recruited 185 advisors carrying roughly $5.1 billion in total client assets meaning just four additional advisors in 2026 translated into nearly $1.7 billion more in AUA and more than $10 million in added revenue, an indication that the firm is attracting larger, more established teams.

LPL Financial, typically among the top to offer advisors recruiting bonuses, is historically a recruiting juggernaut, although it has seen some Commonwealth Financial advisors leave in the past year to join competitors.

LPL last month said it recruited HighWater Wealth, a San Diego-based advisory team overseeing approximately $2.4 billion in advisory assets.

The five-member team – including Kristian Forster, Mike Rookus, Falko Hörnicke, Tim Davidson and Brian Rissman – joins LPL's broker-dealer and registered investment advisor platform from U.S. Bank through an affiliation with Quotient Advisor Partners.