LPL's $1.6B Cambridge win: platform capital is the retention price

LPL Financial has pulled a 24-advisor, $1.6 billion practice away from Cambridge Investment Research, and the team's own history gives the move its meaning. Conte Wealth Advisors, led by Anthony M. Conte alongside his father Frank A. Conte and brother-in-law Joseph C. Henriques, joined LPL on August 18 from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, according to Monday's announcement. The practice was founded by Anthony's grandfather, who entered the industry in the 1950s, and Anthony took over in 2012 after starting his own career at Prudential in 2004. In between, the team registered with Prudential Securities, moved to Mutual Service Corporation in 2005, ran its own RIA from 2006 to 2009, and then shifted to Cambridge — a family practice that tried independence, gave it up, and has now chosen LPL's platform over its own charter.

Conte's $1.6 billion across 24 advisors works out to roughly $67 million per advisor, a density that points to a book of substantial relationships. The practice runs offices in Camp Hill, York, Hershey and Lansdale, Pennsylvania, plus Fort Myers, Florida, according to an archived version of its website, and it says it intends to keep growing. Monday's announcement described LPL's size, technology and resources as 'essential' to Conte's goal of recruiting 'growth-oriented' advisors, with Anthony Conte calling the transition support 'remarkable.'

LPL needs these wins. AdvisorHub reports that LPL, the largest independent broker-dealer with roughly 32,500 advisors, has claimed progress on recruiting after spending much of last year retaining advisors tied to its August 2025 purchase of Commonwealth Financial Network. The firm's senior recruiter stepped down in April and responsibilities were reassigned internally. Since then, LPL has landed teams from D.A. Davidson, MassMutual and U.S. Bank, plus 16 other hires this year with $500 million or less in assets or no AUM reported, and it bought Mariner Advisor Network, adding 367 advisors and $31 billion to its brokerage and custody channels. The ledger cuts the other way too: LPL has lost teams to Summit Financial, Cetera and Raymond James, and the Sierra Ridge group that transitioned to LPL last July has since landed at Cetera — transition promises expire when growth plans outgrow the platform.

Cambridge, with roughly $283 billion in assets under advisement and about 4,100 brokers per AdvisorHub, can absorb the loss. But the Conte capture is a recruiting statement, and it sets the breakaway benchmark LPL needs to sell: a multi-generational team that had already sampled independence chose scale over charter for reasons that go beyond transition cash. The draw was platform capital — the systems, support and firepower to keep a 24-advisor book growing across five offices. For advisors weighing independence, the comparison now runs through the platform rather than the payout schedule. Conte Wealth is the evidence.