LPL buying broker with $9B in AUM and 240 advisors

LPL Financial is pressing forward with its recent string of big acquisitions by scooping up a hybrid firm with billions under management and more than 200 advisors.

LPL announced Wednesday that it's buying The Investment Center, a broker-dealer and registered investment advisor in Bedminster, New Jersey. The price of the deal, expected to close in the first half of 2025, was not disclosed.

The Investment Center was founded in 1986 to provide back-office support, investment services and technology to financial advisors. It now has $9 billion under management and 240 advisors, according to LPL's announcement. The firm's RIA arm, named IC Advisory Services, listed $2.14 billion in AUM in April in its latest regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Investment Center came in at No. 31 in Financial Planning's ranking of the largest independent broker-dealer firms by revenue this year.

"For more than 35 years, The Investment Center has been dedicated to the success of our advisors, and providing exceptional service is core to our identity as a firm," said Ralph DeVito, president and CEO at The Investment Center. "We have delivered this with great success and sought a partner who would complement our work so we could continue to focus on serving our advisors."

LPL said in its statement that it came into contact with The Investment Center while working on its separate purchase of Atria Wealth Solutions. LPL announced plans in February to buy Atria, bringing on as many as 2,400 financial advisors and as much as $100 billion in client assets.

"The Investment Center fosters an entrepreneurial approach that has driven their success in reaching nearly $9 billion in assets," Rich Steinmeier, managing director and chief growth officer at LPL Financial, said in a statement.

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Atria was just the largest of LPL's recent deals. Also in February, LPL announced that the wealth divisions of Chicago-based Wintrust Financial were moving over to its brokerage, registered investment advisory firm and custodian, bringing at least 85 financial advisors managing $16 billion in client assets. And in May it completed its acquisition of Orange, California-based Crown Capital Securities, adding $5 billion in assets and more than 100 advisors.

John Eubanks, managing partner at the investment banking firm Park Sutton Advisors and an expert in mergers and acquisitions in wealth management, said he can think of no reason why LPL couldn't continue on the same path for a long time. Many of its rival firms, Eubanks said, have shown at least as much capacity for doing deals.

"If you look at some of the large RIAs, the ones with $40 billion to $80 billion under management, some of those have been able to make 10 or 12 or 15 acquisitions in a year, and they're still doing fine," Eubanks said.

LPL has shown some growing pains. In its first quarter earnings, it reported its profits were down by 15% year over year in part owing to higher compensation, acquisition costs and promotional expenses. Eubanks said there's good reason to expect the deals will help the bottom line in the long run.

The string of acquisitions has made LPL one of the fast growing firms in the business. Its headcount has more than doubled over the past five years and it reported having more than 23,000 advisors in its latest earnings statement.

— This article has been updated with comments from firm representatives and industry experts.