LPL Financial’s latest acquisition from Osaic is a California-based $410 million firm that specializes in working with award-winning Hollywood actors, writers and executives.
Nexus Wealth Partners is led by managing partners Scott D. Nelson and Kamie Abraham, along with four support staff members out of Westlake Village, Calif. Nelson and Abraham have about 18 years and 10 years of industry experience, respectively.
Nelson works with business owners, corporate executives, retirees and wealthy families and manages the firm’s entertainment industry wing. Abraham specializes in working with women in life transitions, families, and retirees. The firm searched for a new wealth partner firm for eight months before deciding on LPL, with Abraham calling it a “strategic” decision to equip the firm with needed technology and resources.
“We appreciate the ease of doing business with LPL, both for our team and clients,” she said. “LPL’s integrated platform ensures clients have a streamlined view of their financial landscape, with a single sign-on where they can find everything within one portal.”
Nelson and Abraham are both relatively younger advisors, at 41 and 32 years old, respectively, and they hope the LPL move will help attract the firm’s next generation.
“We wanted to partner with a firm that we could stay with for decades and grow,” he said. “There’s a shortage of advisors and a huge need for qualified financial planning.” We believe through LPL and our experience, we can fill that gap and grow while maintaining a high level of service to our clients.”
The Nexus move is the latest team to depart from Osaic for LPL since Osaic rebranded from Advisor Group last year, with a plan to roll its eight broker/dealers under one entity within 18 to 24 months. Additionally, the firm finalized its acquisition of Lincoln Financial’s $115 billion wealth business earlier this year after closing a deal to buy it late last year.
However, numerous teams with billions in managed assets have opted to move on. In May, Pilot Financial, a network of 105 advisors with $4.6 billion in managed assets, moved from Osaic to become an LPL office of supervisory jurisdiction (the team was with Lincoln before Osaic acquired the business).
In August, two former Lincoln teams with over $4 billion in assets joined LPL from Osaic. Additionally, Jen Roche, an executive vice president of marketing and communications at Osaic, left the firm in August to join LPL (where she’d worked previously in her career). Roche had been instrumental in unveiling Osaic’s rebranding efforts from Advisor Group.
Some advisors who moved to LPL from Osaic said they were worried about further consolidation and that the rebranding had created confusion for clients. Others felt unmoored by Osaic’s private equity ownership, fretting that the firm would reduce services to boost profits (Osaic is partly owned by Reverence Capital Partners).
But in an interview with WealthManagement.com this fall, Price disputed these claims, saying advisor attrition was an inevitable byproduct of a large firm undergoing needed changes. The idea that Reverence mandated plans for the integration was a “misnomer,” according to Price.
“(There’s) the idea of private equity coming in and squeezing costs in our business to gain a profit when 90% of our costs are variable. They’re related to either the markets or the advisors’ payout,” he said. “You would never create a very good wealth management business if that was the thing you did.”
Osaic also announced this week that the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Nova Wealth, a $180 million firm, would be joining the firm’s wealth management network (which totals more than $653 billion in assets under administration).
The firm is led by Elizabeth Evanisko, Jeffrey Gelormini and Brett Komm, specializing in retirement income distribution planning (the firm’s other services include investments, financial planning and insurance). According to SEC records, the firm’s principals are joining Osaic after a five-year affiliation with Cetera.
Osaic unveiled enhanced versions of its NextPhrase retirement income planning tools this summer. These tools calculate personalized, accessible retirement income plans based on information provided by clients to their advisors.
According to Osaic, about 600 advisors use the NextPhase tool with clients, and more than $4 billion in retirement assets are planned through the platform each year. The new version includes features like Social Security optimization and alerts on client risks.