2 Oppenheimer teams with $620M go indie with LPL and Cetera

Oppenheimer & Co. lost three advisors who went independent with LPL Financial and Cetera Financial Group in two recruiting grabs over a one-week span.

Oppenheimer’s headcount has ticked down year-over-year with a net loss of 20 advisors, according to the regional firm’s first-quarter earnings report. The firm currently has a headcount of 1,062 representatives at 94 branches.

Larry Goldstein and his daughter Brooke affiliated with Cetera Advisor Networks after the team spent 16 years with Oppenheimer and amassed roughly $400 million in client assets. Oppenheimer also lost advisor J.R. Frenzel, who had $220 million in client assets and left for a growing LPL enterprise group.

An Oppenheimer spokeswoman declined to comment on the moves. The two teams — who also took three client associates with them — exited from Oppenheimer within three days of one another, according to FINRA BrokerCheck.

The Goldsteins aligned their Los Angeles-based practice with Cetera’s largest independent broker-dealer on June 8. The ability to act independently with fewer limitations after substantial growth and for the elder Goldstein to be able to pass on the business to his daughter under a succession plan prompted the move, he says.

“We were much too constrained by the environment and by a branch or corporation whose focus was not so much on our individual needs and our team and our clients,” he says.

Cetera’s size and technology also helped it stand out from other suitors, Larry Goldstein adds.

Frenzel affiliated with Cetera rival and No. 1 IBD LPL on June 5, according to BrokerCheck. He has launched a Bridgeport, West Virginia-based office of the 207-advisor enterprise group Good Life Companies.

The enterprise has also added newly recruited teams with $675 million in combined client assets in Portland, Oregon, and Orlando in the last three months. Philadelphia-based Good Life is having its best recruiting year ever in 2019, says CEO Conor Delaney.

Good Life currently manages $2 billion in client assets after adding some $1.2 billion this year alone through recruiting and organic growth, according to the firm.

“Our business model is real simple,” Delaney said. “We take advisors out of the wirehouse model and bring them into an independent model so that we can provide them with the with the real estate, infrastructure and technology they’ll need.”

Frenzel began his career at the wirehouse Merrill Lynch in 2009 before a four-year stint at RBC.

“With the way the industry is changing, I knew I had to reinvent myself to help improve my ability to serve my clients,” he said in a statement. “Good Life set me up with a location and the office support to establish my firm.”