When Commonwealth’s sale to LPL upended the independent landscape, advisor Brandon Cox decided he wasn’t going along for the ride. After 16 years across Commonwealth and Edward Jones, Cox broke away from the broker-dealer space to launch his own RIA, moving roughly $220 million in client assets to Raymond James under its RIA & Custody Services division (RCS).
Cox’s RIA, called Coastline Complete Wealth, is based in South Carolina and registered with the SEC. He expects his three-person RIA to hit $2 million in revenue this year, currently serving about 190 clients who are primarily retirees in the Hilton Head and Bluffton, SC, area. Cox worked at Edward Jones from 2010 to 2023, followed by a two-year stint at Commonwealth until the firm’s $2.7 billion sale to broker-dealer giant LPL.
“I had no idea that Commonwealth would sell. So I was only there at Commonwealth for two and a half years, and I never intended to move or make another change, but then I felt like, if I didn't make a change, I'm getting swept to LPL,” said Cox, 47. “They're going to keep the name, but to some extent it's going to be Commonwealth by LPL, or something along those lines. I just didn't really trust it, and so we made the decision to go RIA.”
Among the roughly 650 advisors to depart Commonwealth since its announced April 1 sale to LPL, 64% have stayed with a broker-dealer while 36% headed to the RIA channel, according to a recent report from Muriel Consulting and AdvizorPro. Cox weighed the payout and advisor services from the broker-dealer divisions at Raymond James, LPL, Cetera, Osaic and Kestra before going independent.
“There was a trade off down every single one next to Commonwealth, in my opinion. The only real considerations would be Kestra, Raymond James and staying at LPL. Kestra felt the most like Commonwealth, but Kestra feels for sale to me, being owned by private equity,” Cox said. “As you start to look at what broker dealers are doing for you, the value wasn't as much as it needed to be to stay in that world. You see these trends, there's only movement in one direction—it's captive to independent to RIA. There's no movement back the other direction.”
The RCS custody division at Raymond James is lesser known than the firm’s broker dealer business. About 400 RIAs custody with Raymond James, according to Cox. Joining him at Coastline Complete Wealth (CCW) are his longtime office assistant Brenda Vellia and advisor Jordan Bryant, formerly of Wells Fargo and Commonwealth.
The leap towards independence requires Cox to build out his own tech stack, which thus far includes financial planning software Right Capital, tax return automator Holistiplan, and Smart Asset’s lead generator for client referrals. “The biggest challenges are also what is the most fun, you get to design every single thing, every process,” Cox said of launching his RIA.
“There are some really amazing things about it. You can talk like you want to talk and be a real person and not kind of be going with a company line,” added Cox. “There are definitely some negatives, because no one has things all packaged up and figured out like an Edward Jones did, to where it was all in a single ecosystem.”
Cox’s ambitions are to eventually reach $3 million in revenue and 300 clients with his current team at Coastline Complete Wealth. His client acquisition strategy also includes hosting educational seminars at a local college, covering topics like taxes, annuities, and estate planning.
Cox uses advisor marketing provider LeadingResponse to send seminar invites to potential leads in his area. The compliance team at Raymond James was not going to allow Cox to host his seminars, which was a “deal breaker” in his choice to go independent with RCS instead of keeping Raymond James as his broker-dealer.
“Three people from Tampa showed up here [in South Carolina] from Raymond James, sat in our conference room and just completely did everything. Every client had their docusigns in four business days,” said Cox. “We were supposed to do this in October, and the government shutdown means we had our paperwork in with the SEC, but our RIA didn't get officially approved after a delay of two months.”
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