LPL Puts Morrissey In Charge Of Recruiting In Shuffle
January 7, 2015
by Dan Jamieson, Financial Advisor
In a management shuffle, LPL Financial will be putting managing director Bill Morrissey in charge of recruiting for all of the firm’s channels, and Andy Kalbaugh, also a managing director, will be in charge of advisor consulting services for the entire firm.
The changes are set to take effect January 11, said LPL spokesman Peter Gilchrist.
Morrissey, based in San Diego, is currently responsible for both recruiting and consulting services for LPL’s independent broker-dealers.
Kalbaugh, based in Charlotte, N.C., has had the same role for the firm’s hybrid channel and institutional unit, which services banks and credit unions.
The move will better fit the talents of both executives, Gilchrist said, and better support the firm’s 14,000-plus advisors.
(LPL’s consulting services provide advisors with practice-management and succession-planning support.)
Refocusing Morrissey on recruiting efforts could provide a badly needed boost to the firm’s talent acquisition. He has been in charge of recruiting for the firm’s retail side for nearly a decade, and is given credit for nearly doubling advisor head count over that period.
But LPL saw a net loss of 57 advisors in the third quarter of 2015, and added just 37 reps from the beginning of 2015 through September 30.
In 2014, the firm added 363 net new advisors.
LPL needs to focus on beefing up service to attract reps, said recruiter Jon Henschen of Henschen & Associates in Marine on St. Croix, Minn., but that’s difficult when the firm is holding the line on expenses.
“I don’t see these shuffles as helping,” he said. “If you don’t have a good service story, all the shuffling in the world won’t help.”
Gilchrist said the management change isn’t being driven by recruiting pressures.
Still, LPL management clearly wants to see a pickup in what has been a tepid recruiting environment. Advisors have been sitting tight as the market has rallied. And LPL itself has been dealing with negative publicity from regulatory shortcomings and a number of executive departures over the past few years.
What’s more, with RCS Capital restructuring itself through a bankruptcy process, and with the AIG Advisor Group of broker-dealers reportedly on the block, industry observers expect that more independent reps may be looking for a new home this year.
News of LPL’s management shuffle was reported earlier Thursday by InvestmentNews.