LPL Financial Agrees to Buy CUSO Financial Services & Parent Company

A little more than six years after CUSO Financial Services was acquired by Atria Wealth Solutions, the company announced Tuesday that it entered into an agreement to be acquired by the financial advisory giant LPL Financial.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

According to the announcement, the agreement was signed Monday to acquire Atria Wealth Solutions, which has approximately 2,400 advisors and supports 150 banks and credit unions managing roughly $100 billion in brokerage and advisory assets.

Officials said they expect to close the deal sometime in the second half of 2024, with a full conversion to be completed in mid-2025 subject to regulatory approval and other conditions.

LPL Financial President/CEO Dan Arnold said, “Atria has built a great community of advisors and institutions, led by their client-centered culture. We look forward to welcoming their advisors and institutions to the LPL family, and to helping them optimize their success by providing the capabilities, technology and services to differentiate and win in the marketplace and run thriving businesses.”

In a prepared statement, Atria Wealth Solutions CEO Doug Ketterer added, “Atria was founded on the vision to help deepen and enrich the relationship between financial advisors and their clients while helping them build strong and growing practices and programs. LPL shares our fundamental belief of putting advisors at the center of everything we do. I’m excited for the opportunity that our financial advisors and institutions will have to leverage LPL’s breadth of services, vast resources and unparalleled value proposition. There is no question that LPL represents the best opportunity for a financial professional, bank or credit union to grow their practice or investment program.”

The San Diego-based CUSO Financial Services and Sorrento Pacific Financial, formerly Advanced Financial Solutions, were acquired by Atria Wealth Solutions in November 2017. Before the acquisition, CUSO Financial Services had run independently since beginning operations in 1997 to “enhance credit union value by providing efficient and effective investment programs” for credit union members.

According to LPL Financial, “Atria will transition its brokerage and advisory assets currently custodied with its network of broker-dealers to the LPL platform. The broker-dealers include two with a focus on supporting banks and credit unions — CUSO Financial Services and Sorrento Pacific Financial – and five that support independent financial professionals — Cadaret Grant, NEXT Financial Group, SCF Securities, Western International Securities and Grove Point Financial.”