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National Holdings Corp. acquires independent broker-dealer WFG Investments

15:53 20 March in In the News by rafferty

March 14, 2017 By Bruce Kelly, Investment News The transaction comes as industry executives and consultants expect more consolidation in the IBD industry   In the midst of a punishing business environment for small and mid-sized broker-dealers, National Holdings Corp. said on Monday it was acquiring select assets of Williams Financial Group of Dallas, including its independent broker-dealer, WFG Investments. Williams Financial Group has approximately 230 financial professionals nationwide with approximately $6.5 billion in client assets under management. Under the terms of the transaction, National will pay $2.3 million in initial consideration at the closing, which is subject to the approval of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. There is potential for additional cash and/or stock payments if certain performance targets are met within three years following the deal's closing. Industry executives and consultants widely believe more consolidation is coming to the...

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Who’s Moving to LPL?

00:22 08 March in In the News by rafferty

March 7, 2017 By Janet Levaux, ThinkAdvisor The number of reps joining the firm was way up in the fourth quarter, but new assets are not showing a similar spike As it does each quarter, LPL Financial is providing the names of financial advisors who’ve recently affiliated with the independent broker-dealer. The list includes several large groups of registered reps and the names of individual advisors who have joined from a wide variety of firms. Despite the long list of new FAs, though, the IBD said net new assets coming over from new clients and advisors grew just 2% in the fourth quarter of 2016 from the prior quarter and only 1% from the earlier year. This includes both advisory (fee-based) and brokerage (commission-based); broken out, net new advisory assets expanded 9% from Q3’16...

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BD Back-Office Consolidation: Profit Bonanza or Service Boondoggle?

17:45 23 February in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

February 22, 2017 By Jon Henschen as published on ThinkAdvisor Even before the Labor Dept. fiduciary rule has been implemented and now likely delayed for 18 months, broker-dealers are making business changes due to lower revenue and higher expenses. One broker-dealer recently laid off employees due to a major slowdown in variable annuity revenue while another BD with a strong focus on alternative investments and REITs announced that 2017 would be break-even after years of consistent profitability; we see many broker-dealers raising costs or adding profit centers to help fill in the void. For multiple broker-dealers operating under a single owner, the temptation to cut costs by consolidating back-office services is nothing new but with the added expenses and revenue decline of DOL rules, consolidation projects appear to be hitting fever pitch (see Fighting the Big Profit Squeeze). Below we...