LPL snags $1.6 billion team, this time from Voya

LPL Financial made it clear over the winter it was gunning for advisers registered with Voya Financial Advisors Inc., a big chunk of which was being acquired by LPL rival Cetera Financial Group.

Cetera this month said the acquisition had been a success and it had retained more than 90% of Voya's 900 financial advisers and $37 billion in assets. But the independent broker-dealer was able to pull at least one huge group out of Voya, Brian M. Woods Financial Services, with close to 30 financial advisers that work with $1.6 billion in advisory, brokerage and retirement plan assets, according to a statement Thursday morning from LPL.

According to his BrokerCheck profile, Woods, based in Danvers, Massachusetts, moved to LPL from Voya at the end of April. The team moved in May, according to the statement.

It is the third time in June that LPL has announced a billion dollar team, in terms of client assets, from another firm moving to one of LPL's variety of platforms for financial advisers.

LPL traditionally has focused on recruiting brokers and advisers who are paid as independent contractors, like those who were registered with Voya Financial Advisors.

But with more than 18,000 brokers and advisers under its roof, the independent broker-dealer recently expanded its efforts to chase wirehouse employees, known as breakaways, and also land advisers with their own registered investment adviser firms who need to work with an RIA custodian.

Earlier this week, Larry Boggs, whose 13-person, five-adviser team managed $1.3 billion at Wells Fargo Advisors, has launched Boggs & Co. Wealth Management and affiliated with LPL.

Boggs, whose team includes his three daughters, affiliated through LPL’s Strategic Wealth Services unit, which supports breakaway advisers. The team is based in Cumberland, Maryland. 

And last week, Puzzle Wealth Solutions, a 10-person, six-adviser team that managed $1.2 billion at UBS Financial Services left and went independent and affiliated with LPL through Gladstone Wealth Partners, an LPL office of supervisory jurisdiction.

LPL has also been making selective, enticing recruiting offers to advisers for the past couple years based on adviser assets, and that structure is potentially more lucrative than typical offers from independent broker-dealers and can turn into more dollars for the adviser.