For small B-Ds, becoming part of a branch office of a larger firm is a viable exit strategy
August 25, 2017 By Bruce Kelly, Investment News Such deals allow them to get out from under the cost of running a broker-dealer, but preserves their brand and culture LPL Financial's acquisition this month of the National Planning Holdings Inc. network of four broker-dealers with 3,200 reps and advisers certainly has the independent broker-dealer industry abuzz, but transactions involving smaller broker-dealers are also of keen interest, as well as far more common. At the start of the year, brokerage executives pointed to the potential for large firms buying small firms, which are struggling with compliance and technology costs, and absorbing them as branches called offices of supervisory jurisdiction, or OSJs. Two recent deals or mergers stand out. Royal Securities Co. of Grandville, Mich., a 17-person broker-dealer managing $1.1 billion in assets, in July said it...
