LPL Sees Recruiting Benefits From Souped-Up HNW Services

Jen Hollers, a planning and advice services executive at LPL Financial

LPL Financial said it was expanding its high-net-worth services program this week so that its 22,660 financial advisors could deliver an "elevated experience" and more personalized guidance to clients seeking a sophisticated approach to wealth management.

The firm believes that many advisors on the move today want the ability to serve wealthy clients more personally and holistically, according to Jen Hollers, senior vice president of planning and advice services.

The new services, Hollers told ThinkAdvisor in an interview, aim to complement LPL's November 2023 launch of a dedicated private wealth channel designed for advisors focused on serving clients with at least $5 million in assets. It's open to all advisors, she noted, giving them the ability to engage, win and retain clients with significant amounts of wealth without needing to completely refocus their practices on this niche.

Ultimately, Hollers argued, these efforts should position LPL well when it comes to recruiting and retaining top advisor talent — especially breakaway teams leaving the four wirehouses, other large broker-dealers and private banks.

The firm is laser-focused on such talent, she added, mainly because the broader advisor force is aging and challenges remain when it comes to sourcing next-generation talent that reflects the evolving U.S. population.

In 2023, LPL added 1,386 advisors. Recruited assets for the year totaled $80 billion, while net new assets generated by existing advisors were $100 billion. Overall, it has $1.35 trillion of assets on its platforms.

This year, the firm plans to onboard 2,600 financial advisors from Prudential Financial, and complete the transition of up to 2,400 advisors with Atria Wealth Solutions by mid-2025.

Doubling Down

"I want to emphasize that we have always focused on supporting our advisors in this area, but this expansion will help us to deliver a greater deal of expertise across our advisor force," Hollers said. "What is new is the depth and breadth of experts that we have added to the central team, especially the estate attorneys and CPAs."

According to the executive, LPL's advisors will be able to forgo the significant time and expense of sourcing in-house expertise by relying on the expanded support.

"It's about giving them new resources that will allow them to better serve more complex clients," Hollers said. "It's amazing to see the demand that is already building after the announcement. We're already very busy taking calls and booking appointments for training and introducing the program."

Hollers said advisors have been particularly enthusiastic about having more access to certified public accountants within the LPL planning ecosystem.

"We hear constantly from advisors that their clients' existing CPAs are just too reactive or time-constrained," Hollers said. "They aren't providing that proactive advice and engagement that holistic wealth advisors would want to see. The advisors are excited to do more collaborative planning."

The Recruiting Angle

Hollers said the expanded support services should help advisors thrive within their own practices, but they also give LPL a strategic advantage in the fight to win and retain great advisors.

"This helps us with recruiting, too," she noted. "As advisors are breaking away or looking for an affiliation that is really going to support their high-net-worth book, these are the kinds of support services they tell us they are looking for. So, this should help us attract new advisors to LPL and retain those relationships for the long term."

As Hollers noted, captive advisors at the wirehouses or private banks may technically have access to similar resources, but they often feel like this work puts them into competition with their firms' internal private wealth channel. This situation, she said, can be irksome to many, and it is often cited as the cause for breaking away.

Plus, younger advisors stand to gain significantly from this service expansion, since they'll be able to tap into expertise that would otherwise be out of reach or cost-prohibitive to build in-house, the executive points out. This way, they can work with clients on the journey to becoming more wealthy, deepening the relationship ahead of potential liquidity events.

"For example, this gives the advisor a pathway to support clients in the years ahead of a big sale of a closely held business, when they aren't yet highly wealthy on paper," Hollers explained.