August 9, 2023
by Lisa Fu
LPL Financial has lured in another Merrill broker, this time to its burgeoning employee channel, Linsco, according to an announcement on Wednesday.
J. Brendan Wood, a 15-year Merrill lifer, joined LPL on August 2, according to BrokerCheck. Wood, who managed $130 million in assets, is launching a solo practice, Wood Wealth Management, in Hartford, Connecticut, according to LPL’s announcement.
At Merrill, he had been part of The Foundation Management Group, a team based in Springfield, Massachusetts, according to a Forbes ranking. The publication listed him this year as a member of a best-in-state team with $654 million in total assets and in 2021 ranked Wood individually as #89 on its best-in-state list for Massachusetts.
Wood did not respond to a call for comment. Spokespeople for LPL and Merrill also did not return requests for comment on the move or Wood’s production. A person answering the phone for Foundation Management Group declined to comment.
LPL, which has nearly 22,000 brokers, launched the Linsco unit in 2019 to appeal to wirehouse brokers who want to move between captive models and has grown it to around 100 brokers.
Wood, a former teacher, said in a statement that he wanted more flexibility in running his practice but did not want to deal with the typical administrative tasks associated with being an independent broker.
“I want to be able to focus on planning, investing and service, rather than real estate, compliance and HR matters,” Wood said.
Linsco in June recruited another Merrill lifer who had been overseeing $325 million in Austin, Texas. LPL separately on August 1 hired a $320 million-asset Merrill team to its Strategic Wealth Services channel, an independent unit that offers more support in exchange for a flat fee.
