InvestmentNews reported that LPL Financial is set to miss the 90% retention target it had set when it agreed to acquire Commonwealth Financial Network. Citywire RIA and WealthManagement.com reported that the firm now expects to keep about 83% of the wealth firm's assets. The change was disclosed on LPL's third-quarter earnings call in late October, and InvestmentNews framed the revised figure as a miss against that original goal.
LPL's third-quarter results were released on Oct. 27, 2026, from San Diego, according to the company's announcement. The release says the conversion of Commonwealth's advisory and brokerage assets to LPL's platform remains on track for the fourth quarter of 2026, and it puts Commonwealth's estimated run-rate EBITDA at $415 million, an earnings figure rather than an asset figure. An 8-K version of the release was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The sources describe the retention metric in different terms: WealthManagement.com reported that LPL's finance chief put retention at 85% in the prior quarter among advisors who had already signed, while noting that a few of those advisors have since chosen to depart. Management attributed the shortfall to that group.
On the call, Rich Steinmeier, LPL's chief executive, said the firm now projects keeping roughly 83% of the approximately $300 billion in Commonwealth assets under management, per Citywire RIA, which reported a roughly 15% drop in LPL shares afterward. Investing.com reported that third-quarter adjusted earnings per share were $5.97, above a $5.67 Wall Street forecast, while revenue of $5.34 billion came in just below a $5.35 billion expectation. Shares fell in after-hours trading following the call. The company's release reported third-quarter net income of $357 million, or $4.52 per share.
LPL announced the acquisition on March 31, 2025, saying it would bring over about 2,900 advisors and $285 billion in assets. At the close on Aug. 1, 2025, LPL cited $305 billion in assets and about 3,000 advisors. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the first quarter of 2025 described the deal as priced at $2.7 billion and said it would be financed with corporate cash and with debt and equity proceeds. Yahoo Finance reported that management described the purchase price as roughly eight times EBITDA, which it still considers a compelling use of capital. These figures measure different things, and third-party sites that list Commonwealth at about $212.7 billion in assets and between 2,650 and 2,958 advisors conflict with the company's own numbers, so they are not used here.
According to LPL's closing announcement, Commonwealth dates to 1979, has its base in Waltham, Massachusetts, and also operates from San Diego and an operations center in Blue Ash, Ohio. Commonwealth's own 2023 release said the firm had been privately held for 43 years. Wayne Bloom is described in Commonwealth's release as its chief executive and as a managing director on LPL's management committee after the deal. LPL's release says founder Joe Deitch now sits on LPL's board in an advisory role. LPL is headquartered in San Diego and trades on Nasdaq under the ticker LPLA. When the deal closed, LPL put its support base at more than 29,000 advisors, around 1,100 institutions, and close to $1.9 trillion of brokerage and advisory assets.
On the call, Steinmeier blamed competitors' sustained high transition assistance rates for an aggressive market, according to a Motley Fool transcript of the call. The conversion timeline has also moved. A 10-Q filed after the deal was announced said the conversion would be completed in mid-2026, and the timeline has since shifted to the fourth quarter. On the call, management noted that the conversion was roughly two weeks out for one account, while another was scheduled for mid-November. Investing.com said near-term organic growth had slowed, and that September and October figures suggested a leveling off. WealthManagement.com summarized the quarter as showing LPL's strongest organic growth rate in more than a year, and noted that the company is considering new platform-fee pricing.
The next checkpoint is the conversion itself, which the company has scheduled for the fourth quarter. Until then, the open questions are how many of the advisors who have signed on remain through the move, and whether the pricing changes LPL is considering reach the advisor base that Commonwealth built.