A longtime affiliate firm under Commonwealth Financial Network is launching a new $6 billion hybrid RIA called Bartholomew & Company, and is maintaining its relationship with the broker-dealer now owned by LPL Financial.
Tom Bartholomew has been registered with Commonwealth since 1994, the year he founded his Massachusetts-based advisory firm. The shift to operating as a hybrid RIA comes as Tom’s son, Alex Bartholomew, was appointed CEO and chief investment officer in June with Tom moving into a chairman role at Bartholomew & Company.
LPL’s acquisition of Commonwealth for $2.7 billion, first announced at the end of March 2025, served as a catalyst for Bartholomew to branch into the hybrid RIA model. In an interview with InvestmentNews, Alex Bartholomew credited the scale of LPL’s technology and custody services as an upgrade over Commonwealth’s prior custody relationship with Fidelity’s National Financial Services (NFS) platform.
“There's a lot of benefits in moving to a custodian the size of LPL, particularly as an RIA. So it's allowing us to invest in technology that we never would have been able to if we had tried to do it with Commonwealth and NFS. The acquisition is absolutely the catalyst, but for the right reasons,” said Bartholomew.
Bartholomew & Company has grown to a team of 40 without a single advisor leaving since Commonwealth was bought by LPL. A report from Muriel Consulting in January 2026 found that 22.5% of Commonwealth’s advisors (653 exits) left after its sale to LPL. In LPL’s Q1 earnings call, CEO Rich Steinmeier said the brokerage remained on track to hit 90% asset retention from Commonwealth advisors.
“Everything that we've gone through in this onboarding and conversion process has been about keeping Commonwealth separate from other channels, or I believe they call them foundations at LPL,” said Bartholomew. “There's a commitment contractually for not only the brand, but the service model of Commonwealth. It's more than a verbal commitment.”
Advisory assets will move under a new Form ADV from Bartholomew & Company Wealth Management, LLC, while brokerage and commission assets will stay with Commonwealth. Bartholomew says LPL’s purchase of Commonwealth has been a “blessing” because “it's allowed us to pursue things that we really have been talking about for a long time.”
“As a hybrid RIA, we have more options to provide to our advisors for data, performance reporting, trading, billing — the critical infrastructure you need for a financial advisory firm,” said Bartholomew. “And we still have access to LPL's ClientWorks, so it really was a slam dunk in terms of accessing the best of both worlds. We're using the systems that we want to use, we're free to do that as an RIA, on top of the chassis of LPL and Commonwealth.”
Bartholomew & Company serves affluent and high-net-worth clients, as well as institutions, government entities, and non-profit organizations particularly in Massachusetts and the broader New England area. Amid its current restructure to a hybrid RIA, Alex Bartholomew says the firm is positioning for substantial organic, M&A, and recruiting growth in 2027. Bartholomew & Company has offices in Worcester and Framingham, MA, while Commonwealth’s headquarters are also in Massachusetts.
“The people that we've been working with [at Commonwealth] for the last 32 years are still there, still our main point of contact, and we happen to also have LPL contacts on top of that. So we're building new relationships with a lot of great people we come in contact with at LPL, but they're not replacing our Commonwealth partners, they're really adding on top of it. Turnover has already hit in certain departments, but the people that we work with closely are still there.”
In a statement, Tom Bartholomew called his firm’s hybrid RIA launch a “natural next step.” During last year’s frenzy to recruit advisor fallout from LPL’s move for Commonwealth, Tom Bartholomew took to LinkedIn to ask rival broker-dealer firms to stop their poaching efforts.
“I respectfully request that all recruiters for other BDs discontinue their efforts to contact me in the effort to convince Bartholomew & Company to consider alternative options,” Tom Bartholomew wrote last July. “Your efforts are increasingly convincing me that we’ve made the correct decision to work with Commonwealth and make certain that the LPL acquisition succeeds. Thank you for your understanding."
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