Kestra, Arkadios pick up Commonwealth teams: Advisor Moves

November 26, 2025 11:35 AM

Even in a short holiday week, the wealth management industry can manage a few notable recruiting and acquisition deals.

Kestra Financial and Arkadios Capital snagged some big teams from Commonwealth Financial Network, while Raymond James recruited from Edward Jones and Cetera from LPL. Meanwhile, Cambridge Investment Research brings a formerly hybrid RIA into its fold. Read about it all below.

Monogram Wealth Partners has joined Arkadios Capital from Commonwealth Financial Network.

Arkadios Capital

Commonwealth teams with $1.5B total AUM leave for Kestra, Arkadios

Commonwealth Financial Network continues to lose financial advisors following its acquisition by LPL Financial, with teams recently leaving to join Kestra Financial and Arkadios Capital.

Grandview Partners, a firm founded in 2019 and based in Westwood, Massachusetts, has left Commonwealth to join its independent broker-dealer rival Kestra. The 10-person team was managing roughly $800 million for 650 households.

Grandview Partners is led by Douglas Mavilia, Timothy Ryan and Peter Smith and includes the financial planners Dan Sparta and Peter Donohoe. Mavilia started his career at Northwestern Mutual in 2002 and moved to Commonwealth in 2008. Ryan started at Ameriprise in 2003 and moved to Commonwealth in 2015. And Smith started at Triad Advisors in 2011 and moved to Commonwealth in 2015.

Kestra, based in Austin, Texas, now has more than $142 billion in assets under advisement.

Separately, the advisory firm Monogram Wealth Partners has joined Arkadios Capital in Garden City, New York. The firm was founded and is led by Maurice Acriche and Louis Rusinowitz and his son Alex Rusinowitz. It had roughly $700 million in assets under advisement at Commonwealth.

Both Acriche and Louis Rusinowitz joined Commonwealth in 2007. Acriche started his career at McLaughlin, Piven, Vogel in 1985 and moved through a long series of other firms before going to Commonwealth. Louis Rusinowitz started at Axa Advisors and Equitable Life Insurance in 1996. Alex Rusinowitz, meanwhile, joined Commonwealth in 2013 following a brief stint at J.P. Morgan Securities.

Since announcing its plans in March to acquire Commonwealth in a $2.7 billion deal, LPL Financial has seen a steady outflow of teams from its former independent broker-dealer rival leave for other firms. Other destinations in recent weeks have included Savvy Wealth and Merit Financial Advisors, along with Raymond James, Osaic, Cetera Financial and Cambridge Investment Research.

Raymond James draws father-son $420M duo from Edward Jones

Raymond James has recruited a father-son team in Virginia to its division for independent advisors.

Forsa Wealth Partners has joined Raymond James Financial Service, the firm's channel for advisors who work as independent contractors, in Chesapeake, Virginia. The team, made up of John Murphy and his son Sean, had managed $420 million at Edward Jones.

John Murphy started at Edward Jones in 1992, and Sean joined him there in 2018. Edward Jones reported earlier this month that it has 20,429 advisors. Raymond James reported in October that its advisor headcount had risen by 2% to 8,943 over the past year, a record for the firm.

Cetera pulls advisor duo managing $350M from LPL

Cetera has gone to its independent broker-dealer rival LPL Financial to recruit a two-advisor practice in Massachusetts.

The CarrThaxton Financial Group is joining Cetera in Westford, Massachusetts. The team is led by the advisors Scott Thaxton and Greg Pennini and had managed $350 million for roughly 1,200 clients at LPL.

Thaxton started his career at Smith Barney in 1995 before moving to LPL in 1998. Pennini started at Jackson National Life Distributors in 2009 and moved to LPL in 2013.

"After nearly three decades with LPL, we wanted a partner that could deliver advanced technology, personalized support and a clear path for scaling our advisory business," Thaxton and Pennini said in a joint statement. "Cetera delivered on all fronts."

Cetera has roughly 12,000 advisors and $625 billion in assets under administration and $284 billion in assets under management. LPL Financial has more than 30,000 advisors and $2.3 trillion under management in advisory and brokerage accounts.

Cambridge Investment Research acquires $1B AUM dual registrant

The independent broker-dealer Cambridge Investment Research has taken on full ownership of Dempsey Lord Smith, a formerly dually registered RIA and brokerage firm in Georgia.

Dempsey Lord Smith, founded in 2007 and based in Rome, Georgia, has roughly $1 billion in assets under management. As part of its acquisition by Cambridge Investment Research, it's giving up its own independent registration as a broker-dealer while remaining a federally registered investment advisor.

Jerry Dempsey, the founder and CEO of Dempsey Lord Smith, said he and his colleagues reached a conclusion shared by many in the wealth management industry: that running their own broker-dealer was no longer essential to their firm's growth.

"Our mission has always been centered on helping advisors grow, and we realized we didn't need to be a broker-dealer to keep doing that at a high level," Dempsey said in a statement. "This partnership allows us to build on the strong community we've created while giving our advisors access to a deeper set of tools, technology and services.

Jeff Vivacqua, the president of growth and development at Cambridge, said in a statement that "Their decision to shift away from operating a broker-dealer allows them to put 100% of their effort into what matters most: advisor success."

The acquisition will result in roughly 75 employees of Dempsey Lord Smith joining Cambridge. Cambridge has $254 billion in assets under administration, according to its website. With a top line of $1.79 billion in 2024, it came in at the No. 10 spot in Financial Planning's "IBD Elite" ranking this year of the large independent broker-dealers annual revenue.