A Lubbock, Texas-based team with roughly $140 million in managed assets will join LPL Financial from Lincoln Financial.
The move comes as Osaic prepares to complete its acquisition of Lincoln National’s wealth management business.
David Miller, the president and managing director of RFS Financial Securities, told WealthManagement.com that while the looming acquisition was not the sole reason for the move, it did factor into the firm’s decision.
After hearing several months ago about the pending sale of Lincoln National’s b/ds, Miller and his business partner Mike Ivey started evaluating their options.
“Basically, the decision came down to the fact that we were going to endure most of the pain of a broker/dealer change with the sale to Osaic,” he said. “So why not take control of our own destiny, find the broker/dealer that suits our business model and is willing to provide significant support for such a massive undertaking?”
RFS Financial Services started out specializing in life insurance before expanding into the wealth management business. Miller has more than 30 years of industry experience and joined Lincoln Financial in 2004, according to his BrokerCheck profile. Ivey has nearly two decades of industry experience, joining Lincoln one year after Miller.
Once the principals at RFS decided to break away from Lincoln, they eventually focused on LPL, drawn to what they considered were “significant investments” in their tech offerings.
“Our clients will appreciate the online tools that will give them access to their account information from any device, whenever they need it,” Miller said.
Late last year, Osaic unveiled an agreement to acquire Lincoln National’s $108 billion wealth management business for $700 million, which consisted of two b/ds, each with a separate corporate RIA. Osaic expected to close the deal in the first half of this year.
This acquisition comes as Osaic (which rebranded from Advisor Group in 2023) is transitioning its other subsidiary b/ds into the Osaic brand. These legacy b/ds and Lincoln Financial’s wealth business are all expected to fully transition into the Osaic fold by the second quarter of 2025.
But as those acquisitions are completed (or near completion), several teams have left Osaic in the past several months, and some have landed at LPL. Among them is the Wisconsin-based Equity Design Group, which joined LPL from SagePoint Financial (one of Advisor Group/Osaic’s b/ds).
Equity Design Group co-founder Jason Hohenstein cited the consolidation as a factor in the decision to move, saying the acquisitions added a “significant layer of confusion” for clients. He also decried the changes in ownership, noting he’d been through several different private equity owners since joining SagePoint in 2011.
By the end, Hohenstein was tired of “being shuffled around like cattle” and said the firm had “no idea” about Osaic’s eventual direction.
Cubby Bice, founder of N.C.-based $130 million firm Bice Wealth Management, echoed Hohenstein’s complaints in explaining his firm’s move to LPL. Bice called the situation at Osaic “untenable” and accused Osaic of prioritizing combining b/ds to boost revenues before going public while neglecting back office support for advisors.
In a previous interview with WealthManagement, Osaic CEO Jamie Price acknowledged more PE firms were showing interest in the firm. But he disputed that any move towards going public was imminent, citing the fact that they weren’t even through consolidating all the b/ds.