Industry News

$4 billion hybrid RIA to leave LPL

Resources Investment Advisors also has affiliate retirement-focused advisory firms with $6 billion in assets, but it's uncertain whether they will follow suit and depart LPL.

Resources Investment Advisors Inc., a hybrid RIA with roughly $4.1 billion in assets that focuses on corporate retirement plans, and LPL Financial are parting ways, the two companies confirmed.
A network of several hybrid registered investment advisory shops affiliate with Resources. They also focus on retirement plans and have an additional $6 billion in assets. It wasn’t clear at press time which of the affiliate RIAs would also be leaving LPL.
Resources Investment Advisors, based in Overland Park, Kan., serves as a sort of co-op for independent advisers and provides them with support functions such as compliance and marketing. In all, the RIA has 12 affiliates housing about 70 advisers and roughly $10 billion in assets, the majority of which is in about 1,000 retirement plans.
Resources Investment Advisors has its brokerage business through LPL, the largest independent broker-dealer in the U.S. Less than 20% of the overall revenue stream between the RIA and its affiliates is brokerage business.
If its affiliates stay with LPL, they would consequently have to leave Resources Investment Advisors.
Vincent Morris, president of Resources Investment Advisors, declined to say which brokerage the RIA is moving to, because the firm is still in the process of finalizing agreements. The firm’s website still reflects LPL as its broker-dealer.
Mr. Morris, who’s also president of the financial services division of Bukaty Companies, an employee benefits and insurance brokerage firm, also declined to comment on why his firm is leaving LPL.
The circumstances behind the split are unclear. LPL maintains it terminated the relationship.
“LPL decided to part ways based on business priorities and wishes Resources Investment Advisors all the best going forward,” according to spokeswoman Lauren Hoyt-Williams. She declined to provide additional detail.
The move comes on the heels of another big departure.
Adviser Ron Carson, owner of Carson Wealth Management, with $8 billion in client assets, recently left LPL for Cetera Financial Group.
Mr. Carson, who was regarded as one of LPL’s highest-profile and longest-tenured advisers, told InvestmentNews he’d lost faith in the broker-dealer’s ability to provide the technology and services he needed to advance his business.
One of Resources Investment Advisors affiliates, Chepenik Financial, advises on $1 billion in assets. About 95% of that is advisory business (both corporate retirement plans and private wealth) running through Resources Investment Advisors, with the remainder running through LPL, according to managing partner Jason Chepenik.
Mr. Chepenik said he is still evaluating his options.
“People make big decisions because our businesses are primary,” Mr. Chepenik said. “Me serving my family business, my clients, my family, those things are the most important, not the broker-dealer I’m affiliated with.”