Osaic completes purchase of Lincoln Financial's wealth units

Osaic has wrapped up its biggest acquisition in years with its purchase of Lincoln Financial Group.

The deal, announced in December, brings Phoenix-based Osaic 1,400 advisors managing roughly $115 billion for the Lincoln Financial Advisors and Lincoln Financial Securities. It marks the biggest acquisition for Osaic, formerly Advisor Group, since it bought the Ladenburg Thalmann network of five brokerages for $1.3 billion in 2020.

"The addition of the Lincoln Wealth team expands the Osaic national network of seasoned and specialized financial professionals," said Jamie Price, Osaic president and CEO.

Osaic, backed by the private equity group Reverence Capital Partners, is among the biggest aggregators of advisory practices. Its other recent purchases include the midsize independent brokerage competitors American Portfolios Financial Services and Infinex Financial Holdings.

Like many of Osaic's other acquisitions, Lincoln Financial Advisors and Lincoln Financial Securities will continue operating under their own names for a while. Osaic plans to use a consolidation process in the "coming months" to bring its various brokerage businesses under a single brand.

Osaic said in a release that its purchase of Lincoln's wealth businesses comes after a decade-long partnership between the two firms. Lincoln, based in Radnor, Pennsylvania, has struggled in recent years as deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic weighed on its life insurance business. 

Lincoln was hit with other losses following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and changes to its statistical assumptions about certain annuities, according to an analysis by the investing website The Motley Fool. The sale of its wealth businesses to Osaic was expected to net it $700 million in "capital benefit."