Four advisers who managed $650 million at Merrill Lynch in Greenville, South Carolina, have launched an independent practice, NorthEnd Private Wealth, and affiliated with LPL Financial.
The group is using LPL’s Strategic Wealth Services offering, which is designed to offer support for breakaway wirehouse brokers who choose not to build in-house capabilities in technology, human resources, marketing and other areas.
The four advisers — Josh Brown, Scott Thompson, Joel Gray and James (Jake) Cluverius Jr. — are making the move along with staffers Jeannie Fowler and Ashley Thomason.
Brown started at Merrill Lynch in 2000. Thompson started his career at Merrill in 2000, moved to Raymond James in 2009 and rejoined Merrill in 2016. Gray had worked at Merrill since 2014 and Cluverius started at Raymond James in 2016, and switched to Merrill in 2018.
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