A San Diego-based team with about $215 million in assets under management is the latest to leave Osaic for LPL Financial.
Paul Neves and Darrin Santos, founding partners of FSI Wealth Management, are joining LPL from Securities America, one of eight Broker/dealers of the group of legacy advisors that have come together under the Osaic brand.
Neves and Santos joined in 1995 to build the firm in Old Town, San Diego, along with two support staff. They were affiliated with Securities America all along, but the pair decided to make a change when the rebranding was inevitable, according to LPL.
“We were at an impasse with our business and we thought to ourselves, 'Do we want to wait and see what happens next or go somewhere that's already been tried?'” Neves said.
The team ultimately chose LPL, citing the independence and technological access the move would provide. Santos said the partnership would give customers a “simplified online experience.”
Advisor Group announced in April of last year that it would merge its multi-brand network (and 11,000 affiliated advisors) under a single name, revealing Osaic as a choice a few months later.
In addition to Securities America, the eight b/ds included American Portfolio, FSC Securities, Infinex Investments, Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial, Triad Advisors and Woodbury Financial Services, with plans to integrate them all within two years. Royal Alliance, SagePoint, Woodbury and FSC have already converted and Infinex has become “Osaic Institutions”, according to an Osaic spokesperson.
Earlier this month, Osaic closed with the acquisition of Lincoln Financial's The $115 billion wealth business announced late last year. Osaic had more than 1,400 advisers as part of the deal.
But since the beginning of the year, several councilors have left Osaic ahead of the integrations. In February, LPL added $520M Wisconsin-based Equity Design Grouppreviously associated with SagePoint.
According to the firm's co-founder Jason Hohenstein, the move to the Osaic brand added a “significant layer of confusion” for clients, and the firm has felt shuffled through a series of multiple private equity owners since 2011.
“We had no idea which way Osaic was going,” he said.
Cubby Bice, founder of North Carolina-based Bice Wealth Management who also left in February, shared Hohenstein's frustration. He said WealthManagement.com he faced a “volatile” situation at Osaic, claiming the firm had priority while neglecting the support of back-office advisers.
“The fact that they are owned by private equity and try to grow as fast as possible to go public by combining many broker/dealers to increase revenue and income while also not taking care of the needs of advisors regarding back office support or technology. it is what made the situation unstable,” he said.
A number of advisers have also left Lincoln for LPL in the wake of that acquisition, including Nolan Venablea Louisiana-based advisor with a $150 million AUM team and RFS Financial Securities, a $140 million AUM team from Texas, who joined the LPL from Lincoln in March.
Brian Pflaum, a consultant based in Birmingham, Ala with $345 million in assets, decided to join LPL from Lincoln after the sale of Osaic, as did the team at Strategic Wealth Partnersa Dallas-based group led by owner Ryan Rayburn that manages about $860 million in client assets.
of The biggest departure so far is Pilot Financial, a Greensboro, NC-based network with 105 advisors and $4.6 billion in assets under management. The firm decided to switch from Lincoln to LPL earlier this month. Pilot Financial was founded in 2001 after a series of mergers and has been associated with Lincoln ever since. The firm will become an LPL office with supervisory jurisdiction.
“We are looking to grow our network of thinkers and believe working with LPL puts us on a better trajectory to attract like-minded and quality advisors to Pilot Financial,” Greg Smith, a partner with the firm, said of the deal. .