Independent BDs

LPL Financial announced Tuesday that Ryan C. Parker has joined the firm as executive vice president of investment and planning solutions.

The country’s largest RIA aggregator, Focus Financial, is hiring away an architect of one of the industry’s most successful breakaway stories.

Cetera Financial Group is growing again. The broker-dealer network has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tower Square Securities and Walnut Street Securities from MetLife.

Baldwin Brothers, a Massachusetts-based wealth management firm and family office with $1 billion AUM, launches sustainable wealth management platform, Arjuna Capital.

Dynasty Financial Partners, the fast-growing outsourcing provider for high-end wealth managers and breakaway brokers, is expanding its reach in the Midwest.

What do former president George W. Bush, country songwriter Pat Green, four days of advisor-focused panels, and a dance party have in common? They are all aspects of Raymond James' 2013 national conference.

Aquiline Capital Partners and Genstar Capital, two private equity firms, are set to Acquire Genworth Wealth Management for $412.5 million.

Barnaby Grist, Cetera’s executive vice president of wealth management and a high-profile hire from Charles Schwab in 2010, is stepping down to care for his parents in England and his wife’s parents on the East Coast, says a spokeswoman for the broker-dealer network.

Dallas should be a dream market for independent advisors. But unlike the San Francisco, it has not been as hospitable to independent wealth management firms.

Waddell & Reed has hired five new advisors, adding about 1,000 new household clients to the firm.

Fast-growing JHS Capital Advisors has opened a new office in Baton Rouge, La. -- the company’s first in that state.

The firm has won over a $300 million team from UBS and its 10th recruit so far this year.

Despite a rally in the equity markets, February proved to be a lackluster month for Raymond James Financial.

Headhunters say they believe the new plan, which will allow dually registered financial advisors with at least $100 million in discretionary client assets under management to retain 100% of their advisory fees, will help Raymond James retain and attract top hybrid advisors.

If approved by stockholders in LPL’s annual meeting in May, Mulcahy will also serve on the Board’s Audit Committee.

Raymond James is going after more top advisors -- and it's changing its payout structure to do so.

Total stock and bond mutual fund and ETF assets distributed by independent/regional broker-dealers and registered investment advisors grew at more than twice the rate compared to the wirehouse channel during 2012, according to newly released data from Access Data.

LPL’s highly publicized outsourcing effort will cost the company between $70 million and $75 million over the next three years, but will result in annualized operational savings of $30 million to $35 million beginning in 2015, according to Dan Arnold, its chief financial officer.

LPL is launching a new online tool that it says will let its advisors offer offer better visibility to plan sponsors and the millions of LPL clients who are invested in 401(k)s.

“I’m all of 52 years old. I have a baby face. I have four children. I plan to be working for a long time,” Casady said.