Along with Commonwealth, add Osaic and UBS to firms that lost a lot of advisors last year

The financial advice industry in 2025 waited with anticipation for any reports of advisors leaving Commonwealth Financial Network after LPL Financial Holdings Inc. said it was buying its rival a year ago.

Turns out, plenty of financial advisors from other top firms, including Osaic and UBS, were moving to new firms, seeking greater autonomy and reaping the financial gains of top tier recruiting bonuses, according to a new report from a leading recruiting firm.

Advisor attrition was “meaningfully higher” in 2025 compared to earlier years: 11,172 financial advisors moved firms in 2025, compared to 9,615 in 2024, a year-over-year increase of 16.2%, according to Diamond Consultants annual Financial Advisor Transition Report, which was released this week.

Two major events drove financial advisor moves in 2025, according to the report: LPL Financial announcing it was buying rival Commonwealth Financial Network a year ago, and fallout from UBS’s compensation plan changes.

The report, which was written by Jason Diamond, president of Diamond Consultants, does not tally the number of financial advisors that moved from Commonwealth to firms other than LPL. As InvestmentNews and other industry news websites and publications reported throughout last year, competition among firms for Commonwealth advisors was fierce, with many broker-dealers adjusting recruiting bonuses to new highs to entice advisors to make the leap and come aboard.

Data about Commonwealth Financial Network was left intentionally out of report, with Diamond Consultants’ intention to address it when LPL’s and Commonwealth’s integration fully takes place, Jason Diamond said in an interview Wednesday.

“When this is all said and done, that transaction will be a success,” Diamond said. “After LPL announced the deal at the end of last March, competitors boosted their recruiting dollars and those deals are actually still available.”

One consulting firm in January released a report LPL had retained 77.5% of Commonwealth's 3,000 advisors. An industry analyst a few days later said the number was closer to 88%. Meanwhile, LPL has repeated throughout it was targeting the retention of 90% of Commonwealth Financial’s assets. 

Meanwhile, UBS saw 318 financial advisors leave in 2025, and Osaic saw 589 advisors depart from its recently consolidated network of broker-dealers, according to the report, with UBS financial advisors managing close to $52 billion in assets departing.

UBS recently increased its recruiting bonus, according to industry news website AdvisorHub. Last year’s report by Diamond Consultants projected as many as 600 financial advisors would choose to leave UBS.

A spokesperson for UBS declined to comment, while a spokesperson for Osaic also declined to comment.

“Firms and advisors are in a battle for control,” according to the report. “More advisors are making the decision to move as they seek greater agency over their business lives.”

“Firms are willing to offer significant deals to recruit advisors, with the potential of greater freedom, flexibility and autonomy over client service and growth, plus future monetization potential,” according to the report.

Also, 54 teams with $1 billion or more in assets left, with 29 of those coming from a wirehouse.

And 2026 will see at least one major acquisition in the broker-dealer industry, according the report.

“The independent broker-daler space is particularly susceptible to consolidation, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a large W-2 transaction this year as well,” according to the report. “And it may be a seemingly mismatched buyer and seller, given the relative lack of quality properties available to interested buyers.”

Independent broker-dealers pay advisors as independent contractors, while wirehouses and regional firms are referred to as W-2 firms, meaning their advisors are paid as employees. The former takes home a greater percentage of revenue in their compensation than the latter.