LPL affiliate with $600M in assets forms RIA

XML Financial joins roll-up firm Focus Financial.

XML Financial Group, an affiliate of LPL Financial with $600 million in assets under management, has left the independent broker-dealer to start a registered investment advisory firm with the help of Focus Financial Partners.

The RIA will receive cash and stock in Focus Financial as part of the transaction, but act as an independent. The Rockville, Md.-based RIA is led by Brett Shane Bernstein and Robert Kantor. Fifteen other professionals are also moving with them, according to a statement released Tuesday by Focus Financial.

“My partner and I decided it’s time to take the next step — first to become a fiduciary, and then to expand,” said Mr. Bernstein. “I want to be a $5 billion RIA as a goal, in the short-term.”

XML Financial’s strategy is to “turbocharge” its expansion into the greater Washington, D.C.-metro area, Baltimore and along the East Coast. Access to Focus Financial’s capital for acquisitions was an incentive for the RIA to partner with the firm, he said.

Mr. Bernstein said the Department of Labor fiduciary rule had no bearing on XML Financial’s decision to move to Focus Financial, since the lion-share of its business was already fee-based. “It was time for us to put our money where our mouth is and become a full fiduciary,” he said.

Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Kantor previously worked as financial advisers at Merrill Lynch before forming XML Financial and affiliating with LPL in 2004.

XML Financial will be the seventh firm to join Focus Financial this year, as well as the fourth former broker, according to the statement. Focus Financial has been building a network of independent wealth management firms since it was founded in 2006.