In the News

Ease of shift from Pershing platform surprises reps who stayed with LPL

by Darla Mercado and featured in Investment News
October, 2009:

Advisers once annoyed by LPL Financial’s decision to move brokers from three acquired firms off Pershing LLC’s clearing platform say they’re pleasantly surprised by how the independent broker-dealer has eased their transition.

Close to a month after LPL shifted some 1,700 advisers affiliated with Mutual Service Corp., Associated Securities Corp. and Waterstone Financial Group over to LPL’s own clearing platform, advisers who remained through the transition are saying the change really hasn’t been all that bad.

“The technology is faster and more efficient, and now I can contact people directly at LPL, whereas before, I had to go through Mutual Service Corp. and then to Pershing,” said William Hamm, president of Independent Financial Partners.

AIG Advisor Group: They’re Back

by Paul Menchaca and featured in Financial Planning
October, 2009:

It is late afternoon on the last day of August, and Larry Roth sits in a beige and ivory conference room on the 15th floor of One World Financial Center in Manhattan. The setting sun is beaming through a large window behind him. Most of the office has emptied out for the day. Roth, the CEO of AIG Advisor Group, is considering the question at hand: After relentless bad publicity for a massive government bailout to rescue a company rendered nearly insolvent by the reckless deal making of a small unit in London, wouldn’t it have been easier to have made a clean break from the troubled parent company?

I don’t think that’s true at all,”

AIG Advisor Group May Finally Have A Buyer

by Bruce Kelly and featured in Investment News
August, 2009:

With discussions regarding the sale of the AIG Advisor Group dragging on for months, representatives and financial advisers who are affiliated with the beleaguered broker-dealers of the firm are relieved now that two final bidders have emerged.

Two private-equity firms, Light-year Capital LLC and Lovell Minnick Partners LLC, with strong ties to retail broker-dealers, are in the race for the AIG Advisor Group, a network of broker-dealers that houses about 6,000 independent registered reps and investment advisers.

A winner could be announced in the next few weeks, sources said.

The price that the AIG Advisor Group would command isn’t clear. The most recent rounds of negotiations came in the late winter and early spring,