Independent BDs

TD Ameritrade Institutional drew a record 441 breakaway brokers to its platform for independent registered investment advisors in fiscal 2012, a 27% increase from a year earlier.

Among the big deals this week: First Allied buys Legend from Waddell & Reed to form a firm with $28 billion under management.

Largest independent broker-dealer increases assets under management and adds advisors, but revenues don't keep pace.

Brown Advisory, a Baltimore-based independent investment management firm, hired Christopher Bartlett as a partner in its Baltimore office.

Almost one in two consumers (47%) say they keep the majority of their assets with banks, up from 44% in 2011. Self-directed firms and full-service brokers, in contrast, had only 28% and 15% of the market, respectively.

The hybrid RIA firm says it chose LPL after a 'Bachelor'-style bakeoff.

A team of six financial advisors have left Prudential to form Capstone Affluent Strategies, an independent wealth manager that has partnered with LPL Financial.

Risk Paradigm Group, an independent wealth and asset management firm, announced Monday that a three-person advisor team from Morgan Stanley Wealth Management will join the firm.

Capital Guardian LLC, a Charlotte, N.C., based boutique wealth manager, announced Tuesday it added a former LPL Financial team to its independent channel.

The SunTrust affiliate names a firm veteran, Thomas M. Carroll, as the new chief.

Focus Financial Partners, LLC, the nation’s largest partnership of independent wealth management firms announced the acquisition of Vestor Capital Partners, LLC.

Commonwealth Financial Network, the nation’s largest privately held independent broker-dealer, added Schluchter Investment Advisors, which manages more than $300 million in client assets.

Michael James, a former wealth strategist in Goldman Sachs' mid-Atlantic region, has joined the Philadelphia office of Glenmede, an independent investment and wealth management firm, as director of family wealth advisory.

In a new strategic direction, Washington Wealth Management, a two-year old firm that has been growing on a tear by luring advisors from wirehouses, has joined LPL, bringing $750 million in assets under management to the country's largest independent broker-dealer.

Stanzak, the principal and owner of Financial Empowerment, in Bloomington, Minn., will begin her term on Jan. 1, 2014, when she succeeds Michael Branham, FPA's 2013 president.

LPL Financial announced Tuesday it has expanded its Model Wealth Portfolios platform through the addition of two new portfolios from LPL Financial Research and two managed alternative investment portfolios from Fortigent.

Last month fewer broker-dealers closed their doors and fewer new ones opened them - a drop in overall activity that appears to be the product of three factors, according to David Alsup, director of business development for The Compliance Department, a consulting firm that regularly tallies these numbers.

After the shock of 2008, investors had a generally sunny outlook: they were satisfied with their portfolios and their advisors and the firms that employed them. But that is no longer the case.

Fieldpoint Private, a Greenwich, Conn., based wealth advisory and private banking firm, announced that Susan Hirshman has joined the firm as a managing director and senior adviser.

"We provide all the tools a broker needs to thrive," said Russell Gebhard, president of Sovereign Investment Group in Houston."If the advisor is successful, it's more than likely the clients will be, too."