LPL is stepping up support for high-net-worth advisors

LPL is strengthening its support for advisors focusing on affluent investors and households. Through a new high-net-worth services offering from LPL Business Solutions, the firm says it is helping its network of over 22,000 financial advisors deliver “an elevated experience and personalized guidance to high-net-worth clients.”

“Our High-Net-Worth Services are delivered by a dedicated team of subject matter experts with deep experience across domains that high-net-worth clients need,” Jen Hollers, senior vice president for planning and advice services, said in a statement.

The expansion in the broker-dealer’s advisor support offerings allows LPL advisors can now tap attorneys, CPAs, and seasoned experts in advanced planning as they look to build and maintain relationships with high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families, Hollers said.

LPL’s latest offering comes in the wake of new research from Cerulli that revealed an explosion in the investible assets held by high-net-worth households to surpass the $23 trillion mark – a far cry from where those assets were in 2011.

Among other findings, Cerulli saw an expansion in investment management services offered by HNW practices over the past six years, including alternative manager selection (78 percent); internally managed hedge funds or funds-of-funds (32 percent); and planning services such as estate planning (70 percent) and tax planning (45 percent).

The firm just launched LPL Private Wealth Management, an advisor affiliation model focused on those in the HNW space, in November.

“Unlike our competitors, with the LPL Private Wealth offering, these advisors can get the best of both worlds: exclusive access to specialized teams and resources vital to supporting the needs of high-net-worth investors while enjoying all the flexibility of independence,” Gary Carrai, LPL’s executive vice president for advisor business lines, told InvestmentNews at the time.

Last October, LPL said it was sharpening its focus on tax planning with a new in-house service. The firm is including that service in its new set of support services for HNW-focused advisors, along with other items such as: case consultations; advanced planning; estate and philanthropic planning; customized portfolio construction; and access to a “virtual ensemble practice.”

LPL also said that it's scrapping a previous minimum requirement of $5 million in investible assets, which it said would allow advisors to serve the needs of their HNW clients at any stage of their life cycle.