LPL Financial reported first-quarter 2011 profits of $49.0 million, 91.7 percent higher than the $25.6 million in profits it reported a year ago. In addition, LPL, the largest independent broker-dealer, announced in an SEC filing that the company's founder and president were selling large portions of their stock holdings as part of a 6.2 million share offering. Revenues came in 17.5 percent higher at $873.9 million versus $743.4 million a year ago, according to LPL's Q1 2011 earnings release.
In the prior quarter, Q4 2010, LPL announced its first quarterly and FY results as a public company, and costs related to its initial public offering resulted in a net loss of $57 million for the year and $116 million for the quarter. The year-on-year loss came to $1.20 per diluted share, and the quarter-on-quarter loss came to $0.64 per diluted share.
This quarter, LPL reported a 16.0 percent rise in total assets under administration of $330.1 billion versus $284.6 billion a year ago at this time. Advisory assets under management rose 23.1 percent to $99.7 billion versus $81.0 billion a year ago. Net new advisory assets rose 164.3 percent to $3.7 billion from $1.4 billion. This represents average net new assets per FA of about $295,000 for the quarter.
LPL also saw a gain in the number of advisors in Q1 2011, with a 4.4 percent rise to 12,554 from 12,026. Thus, average assets per advisor stand at roughly $26.3 million. The broker-dealer's total sales per rep (including all services) were $69,600 or $278,400 on an annualized basis. Its total production per FA (broken out as an expense) was $48,000 in the quarter, or $192,500 on a 12-month basis.
