$2.1B AUA Duo Bolts LPL To Expand Nationally With Cetera
A duo of advisors operating as Sierra Ridge Advisor Group in Roseville, Calif,, has joined Cetera from LPL Financial, where they oversaw about $2.1 billion in assets under administration.
The team says it is looking to expand nationally and eventually to launch a registered investment advisor firm.
James Slaughter and Giancarlo Foti, co-founders of the office of supervisory jurisdiction (OSJ), joined Cetera’s Large Enterprise channel, bringing about 40 affiliated advisors to the broker-dealer’s community network of advisors, Cetera said in a press release.
The advisors registered with Cetera earlier this month, leaving LPL, the largest independent broker dealer in the country, after 13 months, according to BrokerCheck.
“We made a change because we believe that Cetera is the partner that will help us to continue to grow and provide open architecture for our advisors without limiting us, while positioning us for continued success,” Foti said in a statement.
San Diego-based Cetera is a network of independent retail firms with about $688 billion under administration and $330 billion under management. Its network consists of about 12,000 financial professionals and institutions.
“We’re excited to join Cetera because while other broker-dealers are leaning away from supporting OSJs, Cetera is clearly leaning in with more investments to support the OSJ business model, so we know we’re important to Cetera and its executive team,” Slaughter said. “Partnering with Cetera gives us the resources and the runway to bring the Sierra Ridge approach to advisors nationally, and we’re just getting started.”
Sierra Ridge wants to open new offices in the Midwest and on the East Coast, onboard additional advisor teams and launch an RIA on Cetera’s Blueprint platform, Cetera said. The advisors already operate six offices in California, Missouri, Oregon and Wisconsin.
Slaughter said that Sierra Ridge plans to “maintain a hybrid model to ensure maximum flexibility in serving advisors in both brokerage and advisory.”
“There’s so much to be excited about with Cetera, and at the top of that list is coupling Sierra Ridge’s marketing capabilities with the amazing growth resources at Cetera,” the advisor said.
Cetera said Sierra Ridge and its advisors can leverage several of the broker-dealer’s growth resources, including GrowthLine, which it calls “its proprietary advisor growth engine.”
In its most recent significant recruitment win, earlier this month Cetera said it recruited two advisors from Commonwealth Financial Network, which was acquired by LPL last August for nearly $3 billion. Tucker Bria Wealth Strategies, with about $420 million in assets under administration, joined Cetera’s Summit Financial Networks community of advisors.
