Commonwealth snags $300M team from Northwestern Mutual

Commonwealth Financial Network, the leading independent broker dealer and RIA firm, has announced another addition to its advisory network in the Northeast.

Commonwealth announced Wednesday that Sentinel Advisory Group, a practice based in Middleton, Wisconsin, has joined its ranks.

Previously affiliated with Northwestern Mutual, Sentinel Advisory Group manages over $300 million in client assets. The advisor team comprises cofounders Brent Cashore and Peter Shulla, alongside Nathan Keeling and Cary Grunder, supported by a staff of nine.

“We have high expectations of a firm partner, and we had an extensive list of priorities to ensure we wouldn’t settle,” Shulla said in a statement. Of all seven of the potential partner firms we explored, only Commonwealth checked every box.”

Technology was top of mind for Sentinel, Shulla said, as the team “needed unified technology systems that could both ease how we do business now and enable us to extend our range of services over time while leveling up our client experience.”

Cashore highlighted Commonwealth’s track record of adaptability in accommodating breakaway advisor teams who “[want] more control over their destiny.”

Among the positives from the transition process, he highlighted the firm’s “onsite training support,” the ability to pick the planning software of their choice, and the potential to “evolve faster with the breadth of tools available to us.

“We can also develop our next generation of advisors and pursue an aggressive growth path for our practice,” he added.

Late last month, Commonwealth scored a recruiting win in California as Terramar Wealth, a multigenerational planning practice, severed its 22-year affiliation with Osaic to become its newest OSJ.

Whether Commonwealth can replicate its recruiting success from last year, with recruited assets topping $15.9 billion and nearly 300 new advisors added, remains to be seen. But for what it’s worth, the firm earned a number one ranking among independent advisors in JD Power’s latest Advisor Satisfaction Study, making it 11 straight years that it’s earned the distinction.

Currently, the privately held firm partners with some 2,200 independent advisors and oversees more than $296 billion in assets across the country.