Commonwealth grabs $350M team following record recruiting year

Commonwealth Financial Network, the largest privately held independent broker-dealer, has continued its recruiting momentum and nabbed a $350 million team from Northwestern Mutual.

Adam and Alan Spiegelman make up the father-son team of Spiegelman Wealth Management, a California Bay Area practice serving high-net-worth clients. Alan Spiegelman had spent 29 years with Northwestern Mutual before the Feb. 21 move, according to FINRA BrokerCheck.

Boutique-like models in firms of 500 to 2,000 advisors such as Commonwealth have emerged as attractive alternatives to large and growing IBDs such as LPL Financial, a Cerulli Associates report noted in October. The Spiegelmans’ practice left the No. 5 IBD for the No. 4 firm.

Commonwealth, which has 1,778 advisors, saw record new production added through recruiting in 2017. The firm grabbed 12 practices from National Planning Holdings’ four IBDs alone last year following LPL’s acquisition of their assets.

“After extensive due diligence at all major advisory firms nationwide, we agreed that Commonwealth was the right move for us — not only for the offerings and opportunities that are now available to us but from a cultural standpoint as well,” Adam Spiegelman said in a statement announcing the move.

Representatives for Northwestern Mutual didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Alan Spiegelman’s career also includes stints at Baird and Wells Fargo. His son came over to Northwestern Mutual in 2004 following a three-year tenure at Franklin Templeton Investments. The practice’s office is located in Lafayette, roughly 25 miles outside San Francisco.

“This is a hardworking family office that offers white-glove service to its clients, and we look forward to providing that same level of service to this team,” Andrew Daniels, Commonwealth’s managing principal for business development, said in a statement.

Daniels noted in discussing the record recruiting late last year that Commonwealth sees its process as “certainly a quality not quantity game.” However, the firm and other rivals to LPL have stepped into a tough recruiting fight with the No. 1 IBD after the NPH deal.

For example, fellow father-son duo Stuart and Michael Paris of Great Neck, New York-based Paris International picked Commonwealth over LPL. The practice manages more than $1.3 billion in client assets.

Only publicly traded IBDs LPL, Ameriprise and Raymond James took in more revenue than Commonwealth’s total of roughly $1.1 billion in 2016, according to Financial Planning’s latest annual FP50 survey. Advisor Group and Cetera Financial Group, which are also private firms, had more revenue than Commonwealth but across several different IBDs.