LPL Financial Holdings Inc. said Tuesday morning it was acquiring Atria Wealth Solutions Inc., which launched as a broker-dealer aggregator in 2017 and has 2,400 financial advisors and registered reps across seven broker-dealers who work with $100 billion in client assets.
According to an investor presentation, the equity purchase has an upfront value of $805 million, with up to another $230 million based on retention, or keeping advisors in their place.
Some in the industry have privately criticized LPL's failure to retain financial advisors in such deals, most notably in its 2017 purchase of broker-dealers from insurance giant Jackson National Holdings; LPL said it had acquired about 70% of those broker-dealers' revenue.
One analyst was sanguine about the prospects for the latest purchase by LPL, which had about 21,000 financial advisors before its latest deal's announcement.
“This deal further builds on the success of LPL’s leading aggregation model, which has driven strong organic growth in recent years as newer advisor affiliation models scale, it expands in the enterprise channel, and service capabilities are enhanced,” Jeff Schmitt, research analyst at William Blair & Co., wrote in a research note Tuesday. “With access to LPL’s broader capabilities, technology, and services, we expect Atria to realize revenue synergies as well.”
Meanwhile, even as the broad stock market was selling off Tuesday, shares of LPL Financial Holdings hit fresh 52-week highs, trading at $263.34 before falling back to $255.95 by 2:45 in afternoon trading.
Since it was acquired in 2005 by two private equity investors, LPL has consistently been an acquisition machine, buying up broker-dealers, and more recently investing in registered investment advisors, as the broad financial advice industry undergoes an extensive consolidation.
In 2022, LPL bought one of the giant branch offices that already used the firm for brokerage services, Financial Resources Group Investment Services, which housed bank brokers overseeing $40 billion in assets at the time.
Earlier that year, LPL acquired Boenning & Scattergood, a broker-dealer and registered investment adviser headquartered in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, with $5 billion in assets and 40 advisers. In 2021, LPL completed its purchase of financial advisers from Waddell & Reed Financial Inc.
Atria is backed by private equity investors Lee Equity Partners, and Morgan Stanley veteran Doug Ketterer is its CEO. In roughly seven years, Atria bought two broker-dealers with a focus on supporting banks and credit unions — CUSO Financial Services and Sorrento Pacific Financial – and five that support independent financial advisors — Cadaret Grant, NEXT Financial Group, SCF Securities, Western International Securities and Grove Point Financial.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year, and Atria will transition its brokerage and advisory assets currently held in custody with its network of firm to LPL. That transition is expected to occur in 2025, LPL said in a presentation.
"The outcome is correct, but it's disappointing that FINRA had ample opportunity to investigate the merits of clients' allegations in these claims, including the testimony in the three investor arbitrations with hearings," Jeff Erez, a plaintiff's attorney representing a large portion of the Stifel clients, said.
The collaboration will give RIAs yet another access point into the alternatives space through a new unified managed account capability.
A drop in interest rates and easier access to capital has reignited appetite among private equity-backed consolidators, who accounted for 53% of RIA deals so far this year- their highest share since 2021 according to DeVoe & Company.
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