LPL Financial to miss 90% target on Commonwealth asset retention.

For almost a year and a half, ever since LPL Financial Holdings Inc. said it was buying rival broker-dealer and registered investment advisor Commonwealth Financial Network for $2.7 billion in cash, LPL has maintained it was on target to retain 90% of the close to $300 billion in assets Commonwealth’s advisors controlled. 

At the same time, many in the financial advice industry doubted whether LPL would reach that goal. Executives and recruiters cited the intense efforts by competing firms to hire or recruit away Commonwealth’s advisors, a desirable group who on average were among the top producers of annual revenue per year in the industry.

Looks like the LPL doubters were right all along.

As it works to a final conversion next month of Commonwealth’s advisors to LPL and its technology platform, LPL Financial has revised that goal. LPL is the largest broker-dealer in the industry by headount and works with more than 30,000 financial advisors. 

“With only two weeks until conversion, we have increased clarity on final asset retention, which we now expect to be approximately 83%,” said LPL’s Ceo Rich Steinmeier during a conference call with analysts Tuesday evening to discuss third quarter earnings.

Since LPL announced its Commonwealth acquisition at the end of March 2025, the company has steadfastly maintained its target of retaining 90% of the firm’s close to $300 billion in assets. Commonwealth had close to 3,000 advisors at the time.

Some Commonwealth advisors had a change of heart recently and decided to work elsewhere, said Matthew Audette, president and chief financial officer.

“We started the deal underwriting to 90%,” Audette said. “I think if you look at where we were last quarter, we were right around 85% for folks that had signed.”

“We just had a small number of advisers that had signed decide to -- not to stay, right,” he said. “So it's as simple as that, that brought us down to 83%. So not too much of a decline.”

One analyst, Jeff Scmitt of William Blair, wrote in a note Wednesday morning that he expected earnings per share growth for LPL Financial Holdings of close to  “20% in 2026 and an average of 22% in 2027-28, supported by further improvement in organic growth, Commonwealth synergies, and spread income growth.”

LPL Financial Holdings reported Tuesday that recruited assets during the quarter that ended September 30 were $24 billion, down 26% from the same time a year earlier. Recruited assets over the trailing twelve months were $81 billion.

The company reported net income of $357 million, or $4.52 per share, for third quarter. That compares to a net loss of $30 million, or $0.37 per share, in the third quarter of 2025 and net income of $379 million, or $4.74 per share, in the previous quarter.