LPL Financial LLC, the nation’s largest independent broker-dealer, today announced the firm has reached $50 billion in total RIA assets under custody, doubling its total as of the end of May 2012.
“The $50 billion milestone caps five years of remarkable growth for our RIA custody business,” explained Derek Bruton, managing director for LPL Financial. “We made a calculated decision to focus on this area back in 2008, based on the anticipated success of the then-new hybrid RIA model, which enables both fee and commission-based revenue opportunities for advisors who operate under their own RIA firm.“
According to Cerulli Associates, the LPL Financial RIA custodial platform has grown to become one of the top RIA custodians in the industry and RIA firms on the platform have the highest average assets under custody at $214 million per firm, compared with the top five largest custodians at $136 million in AUC per firm.
“Equally important," Bruton continued, "with our addition of leading capabilities such as retirement plan support and high-net-worth wealth management, combined with unique business processing functions such as our fully integrated trading and rebalancing platform, we can service a broader spectrum of large RIA firms with diverse strategic needs than ever before.”