Kestra loses $11 billion retirement group to LPL

Strategic Retirement Partners, an advisory firm with $11 billion in retirement plan assets, has joined GRP Financial, the largest retirement-plan-focused hybrid RIA that uses LPL Financial as its broker-dealer. Strategic Retirement Partners, which has more than 700 corporate and nonprofit retirement plan clients, joined GRP Financial on April 1. GRP, which functions as a super office of supervisory jurisdiction for LPL now has total retirement assets of roughly $70 billion spread among 4,500 clients. In addition, GRP has around $4 billion in wealth management assets. SRP, which has 17 offices nationwide, previously used Kestra Advisory Services as its RIA and Kestra Investment Services as its broker-dealer. Prior to this recent addition, LPL had seen a handful of large retirement-focused advisory shops depart within the past two years, including the $10 billion Retirement Benefits Group and Resources Investment Advisors, which at the time had around $5 billion. Independent Financial Partners, a $10 billion hybrid RIA, is also leaving the broker-dealer to start its own. (More:​ 401(k) adviser fees for small plans buck compression trend) GRP is one of the largest RIAs that aggregates assets to its platform either through an affiliation model (similar to the recent deal with SRP) or via acquisition. There have been a number of big deals in the retirement market recently. This week saw three announcements: Marsh & McLennan Agency acquiring $16 billion Centurion Group; Cerity Partners buying $11 billion Blue Prairie Group; and Captrust Financial Advisors buying $13 billion in assets from FiduciaryVest. Geoff White, CEO of GRP Financial, ascribes these sorts of deals to margin compression for retirement plan advisers, the opportunity to broaden revenue streams and a need for more business support like technology due to increased complexity.