LPL Financial just had one of its best quarters for bringing new assets to its brokerage business.
The independent broker-dealer recruited $31.2 billion in assets during the third quarter of 2023, LPL disclosed when it reported earnings Thursday. This includes $12 billion in assets coming from the addition of Bank of the West and Commerce.
It's the best quarter for recruitment since Q2 2022, when LPL attracted $43.5 billion thanks to the addition of TruStage (formerly known as CUNA Mutual Group), a credit union-focused firm that added $36 billion to LPL.
Excluding those large enterprise deals makes Q3 2023 the best in LPL history, said Richard Steinmeier, managing director of business development.
"We are strengthening in the way that individual advisors and groups of advisors are choosing to come to [LPL] in a much more material way even than Q2 2022," Steinmeier told ThinkAdvisor. "This was a much more balanced quarter."
Advisor headcount at LPL rose to 22,404, an increase of 462 from the previous quarter and 1,360 from the year-ago period. Steinmeier attributed the successful recruitment to its new affiliation models, which accounted for $5 billion in recruiting during Q3.
These are advisors who wouldn't have considered LPL five years ago because it couldn't support their practice, he said.
"We're starting to see some real validation in the marketplace that we can serve all advisors in the marketplace," Steinmeier said.
