A Florida-based sibling advisory team is joining LPL Financial's breakaway model from Merrill Lynch, creating the new firm Grafton Wealth Advisors with $580 million in assets.
Financial advisors include Sarah, William and Dexter Grafton. The trio are taking over the reins from their father, William “Bill” Grafton III, who started the business in 1972. Client relationship managers Tanya Carroll and Percy Canteenwalla will also join them at LPL.
“This move puts us in a better position to provide highly personalized strategies and independent financial advice in our client's best interest, outside of corporate pressure,” said Dexter Grafton.
The team's client roster includes a roster of multi-generational high net worth families and business owners, with the advisory team providing estate planning, philanthropy and life insurance, income tax strategy, fiduciary services and a platform that offers various alternative investment options.
Sarah Grafton and William Grafton IV joined the industry in 2008, with Dexter Grafton following a few years later in 2013, according to their respective BrokerCheck profiles. The advisors were registered with Merrill for that entire period.
However, the trio wanted more control over their operations, leading them to seek a new alliance. Rather than going completely solo, the team chose to partner with LPL Strategic Wealth Services, which meant access to LPL's wealth management platform, pricing, technology and operational support (including a business strategist, marketing partner, CFO and administrative assistant).
LPL established Strategic Wealth Services in 2020 for firms with more than $200 million in AUM coming from wire or full-service firms to mitigate the downturn in the independent space, offering those firms the kind of standard business support in wire spacing. This included transition advice, customer onboarding assistance and assistance in setting up compliance programs.
The Graftons are not the first advisory team to leave Merrill for LPL this year. In February, a consulting duo based in Pennsylvania left the office to join LPL's Strategic Wealth Services. James P. Debuque and Timothy Baltz managed about $1 billion at Merrill, creating Continuity Private Wealth when they arrived at LPL.
The LPL has had a 2024 upload so far, incl the acquisition of Atria Wealth Solutions, which manages approximately $100 billion and works with approximately 2,400 advisors and 150 banks and credit unions. As part of the deal, Atria would move brokerage and advisory assets stored under several b/ds to LPL's platform.
LPL also added several teams from Osaic, following the planned consolidation of this network of affiliated b/ds. Cubby Bice, a North Carolina-based counselor at $130 million, said it left Osaic because of the “volatile” situation caused by the mergers, accusing the firm of prioritizing scale while neglecting back-office support (Osaic denied the charge).
Firm too reached an agreement with Wintrust Financial Corp. to spin off its $13 billion wealth management business and $3 billion private client business to LPL, representing $16 billion in total (the businesses were previously affiliated with Wells Fargo).
But IBD also reshuffled its C-suite, with Kabir Sethi, managing director and chief product officer, leaving the firm by the end of March, with an “organizational realignment of certain business functions” listed as the reason (firm there were no plans to fill the role, with a spokesperson saying the position's responsibilities had been “re-aligned across different teams”). Prior to his two-year stint at LPL, Sethi was head of digital for Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.