Raanan Pritzker was consistently the
So longtime clients were shocked when he announced in August that he had moved to LPL Financial. For Pritzker, who wanted to offer his wealthy clients top-tier service as their needs grew increasingly complex, the move was an easy sell. "Now I feel like I have the platform to deliver what we want to set out to do, for the next 15 to 20 years."
Pritzker's team, the Atlanta-based PB FAM Private Wealth group, which announced its move on Oct. 2,
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That means in only four short years, Linsco has grown its AUM sevenfold. The milestone victory for the Linsco channel illustrates what industry experts say is one of the most promising weapons in LPL's arsenal, as it seeks to capture more advisors who are sick of working in a traditional broker-dealer or bank model, but may not want full independence. For such advisors, Linsco offers an ideal Goldilocks solution.
"Advisors can find their own identity at Linsco, and they can express their practice's identity with much higher levels of clarity. They're not trapped in a Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, UBS wrapper" despite being W-2 employees, industry recruiter Phil Waxelbaum said in an interview. He added that he knew of competitor IBD firms working on models that would emulate the best aspects of Linsco.
'We were ready to get started immediately'
Moving was a long process for Pritzker, who said he had begun entertaining thoughts of leaving three to four years ago but took his time because his previous employer had treated him well.
His team had grown their practice to a peak of $1.15 billion of AUM, he said — which had since fallen a bit due to market volatility — and they noticed the industry "shifting more towards an independent focus," which seemed to be "more beneficial" to clients, he said. "So we started listening to other firms, and listened to just about everybody out there. But we were in a very good position. … We weren't in need to have to go somewhere."
About a year ago, Pritzker's team learned about LPL through an outside recruiter, then met with an Atlanta-area LPL recruiter. The initial conversation with LPL "really got us a bit more interested in wanting to make a change," he said. The pace of their conversations accelerated in the first quarter of 2023, when Pritzker said that "changing dynamics in the industry" had motivated his team to move to a better platform for client service, and he was satisfied with LPL's responses to many questions his team threw out over the summer in due diligence.
"What was important for us was having a turnkey solution," he said, adding that LPL's consistent investments in state-of-the-art technology for advisors had impressed him, as well as its quality office supplies including printers, and boutique support services like The Private Trust Company.
The team decided early in the process that among LPL's options, Linsco was the most suitable. While LPL's Linsco allows advisors to own their own client relationships, it also lets them enjoy the benefits of employee status, and the institutional support that comes with it — another big selling point for Pritzker. "From the day we walked into our office, it exceeded our expectations," he said. "The technology that was there, the conference room — everything was fantastic, very welcoming. And we were ready to get started immediately. If we didn't partner with somebody like Linsco, then we would have had to figure all that out and it would have been extremely disruptive from the start."
"It certainly has the best of all worlds in terms of moving over to a W-2 employee type platform with the added benefit of a lot of other independent features that you would only get on an independent platform," industry recruiter Michael Terrana said of Linsco in an interview.
Pritzker said he recalled attempting to figure out an LPL tech tool on a Saturday. "The person that's the head of the technology group that supports us is like, 'No, you call me directly. I don't care when it is. I'm going to fix it for you right on the spot.' … It was just that kind of high-level service that really has set apart this partnership during the recruiting process."
Pritzker was also looking forward to tapping LPL for marketing support as he grows his client base organically. "I want to put on quarterly events for our clients. Whether it's having one of the chief strategists come to town and … speak, which is something I used to do every year, or looking at other things that we can do to help enhance the client relationships." He currently serves primarily multigenerational families, business executives and wealthy medical professionals, with the majority of them being ultrahigh net worth.
Finally, Pritzker said, the flexibility to transition out of Linsco into another more independent channel at LPL in five to 10 years had been attractive. "If we want to switch to more of a 1099 model, they're supportive of those kinds of changes. So that is another feather in their cap."
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Linsco's expansion plans in the next two years
Posner said that Linsco's success can be attributed in part to the simple math behind the ongoing transition of advisors out of wirehouse and broker-dealer employers
"If you look at the independent channel today, there's about $5 trillion of assets. … When you start looking into W-2, the wires, the regional channel, there's $15 trillion-plus of assets," he said. "One of the reasons why we are so excited about Linsco and the W-2 model is because what it has allowed us to do is start being an attractive alternative in the marketplace, for many of those advisors that are sitting in that $15 trillion."
Waxelbaum said Linsco also offers highly favorable compensation deals. "What LPL has done is create an employee model with Linsco where the economics to the advisor are enhanced dramatically" compared to wirehouse payouts, for example, he said. Whereas a top employee advisor at a large broker-dealer might see a 45% or 55% payout, at LPL that rises by 15 to 20 percentage points. It can go from 50% to 70%, Posner said.
The firm sees a lot of runway for Linsco to continue growing, and plans on opening several offices across the U.S. in the next 12 to 24 months to support the Linsco brand, Posner said.
Specifically, next year it will open larger offices in Newport Beach, California; greater Detroit (Birmingham/Troy); Franklin, Tennessee in the greater Nashville area; and Overland Park, Kansas.
"We continue to meet advisors where they are and address their real estate needs, which might mean solving for a single team in a given market or making plans to open larger offices that we can recruit into," he said.
