LPL Financial LLC

LPL Financial is the largest organization of independent financial advisors in the United States. The company can trace its origins back to 1968, but the current company was created out of the merger between two brokerage firms, Linsco, which was create back in 1968, and Private Ledger, which was created in 1973, in 1989. LPL Financial mainly grew through organic means in its early years after the merger, but began acquiring companies such as Private Trust Company, WS Griffith Securities, and Main Street Management. The firm would continue to facilitate its growth and expansion through mergers, acquiring UVEST Financial Services in 2006 to add in its brokerage network of over 300 regional and community banks and credit unions and Pacific Select Group to add over 2,000 financial advisors. In 2008, the company would change its old name of Linsco/Private Ledger Corp, or LPL Financial Services, to simply LPL financial. LBL Financial operates under its parent company LPL Holdings, which became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ Stock Market in 2010. LPL Financial currently has over 3,400 employees supporting a network of over 14,000 financial advisors. The company brings in over $4.3 billion in revenue and holds over $475 billion in total advisory and brokerage assets. Most of its clients are individuals, which alone makes up over half of its total client base, and the company also caters to high net worth individuals, pension and profit sharing plans, charities, corporations or other businesses, state or municipal government entities, and insurance companies, in order of decreasing clientele. LPL Financial has over 4.5 million funded accounts with 744 institutional partners. LPL Financial currently overs over 450 different mutual fund families through its financial advisors including JPMorgan, American Funds, Nuveen, PIMCO, Eaton Vance, Fidelity, and others. The company also offers over 35 ETF and ETN through various providers including iShares, State Street Global, Vanguard, and Barclays iPath.