A Houston-based advisor (and former professional tennis player) with $725 million in managed assets is moving to LPL Financial from Bank of America, according to the independent broker/dealer.
Alberto Francis is forming Rockview Private Wealth via his move to LPL Private Wealth Management, the firm’s employee affiliation model for advisors focused on high-net-worth clients.
Francis had short stints at JP Morgan and LPL before joining Merrill in 2018, according to SEC records. He’s the son of Irish and Mexican immigrants and spent three years on the ATP Tour professional tennis circuit, including appearing at Wimbledon (he was also a former NCAA Champion and All-American from UCLA). He completed his MBA at Stanford in 2011 before joining the industry.
Francis works with high-net-worth business owners, athletes and medical and law professionals. He said he’d been working on a move into investments, planning and customized services with his own practice.
“I’ve gained the necessary business experience to make a successful move into the independent space and look forward to having more control over the next chapter of my career,” he said.
The LPL Private Wealth channel offers advisors a variety of services tailored to HNW clients, including estate and philanthropic planning, trustee services and an alternative investment platform. Francis said he chose “Rockview” as a moniker in tribute to the Irish estate where five generations of his family lived.
“The ability to craft dynamic, client-focused strategies without the limitations of proprietary products means I can focus on what’s best for my clients and their futures,” he said.
This year alone, LPL has attracted numerous teams from Merrill/Bank of America, including Oklahoma City-based advisors Alain Verhille and James Wood, who managed about $705 million at Merrill before joining LPL Private Wealth Management. LPL also attracted a $1 billion Doylestown, Pa..-based team to its premium affiliation model and grabbed former Merrill teams totaling $820 million and $580 million from Texas and Florida, respectively.
However, LPL is also facing several suits calling for class actions against the firm, alleging its cash sweep programs violated its responsibilities to clients. Like many firms, LPL has a program to automatically transfer (or “sweep”) uninvested cash balances into “interest-bearing” accounts. In separate suits, LPL clients Dan Peters and Douglas Nevitt argued that sweep programs always boosted LPL profits at customers’ expense.
Nevertheless, according to CEO Dan Arnold, LPL has “no plans” to change its pricing on cash solutions (unlike competitors like Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which have announced potential sweep account shifts). Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are also facing scrutiny from the SEC over their cash sweep programs.