Journey Strategic Wealth, a $3.7 billion registered investment advisor partnership launched in 2021, has added a $200 million Tampa, Fla.-based team from LPL Financial. MDL Wealth, which includes founder Michael LaBarbera, advisor Ted Albrecht and service advisors Carol Liddy and Sheila Meneses, is the eighth team to join Journey since its inception.
MDL helps Journey establish a footprint in the Tampa area. This follows the addition in March of Meath Wealth Advisors, a team with $160 million, Journey’s first Minneapolis office. The firm has other locations in the San Francisco Bay Area; Richmond, Va.; Seattle; Park City, Utah; New York; and Northern New Jersey.
Journey President Penny Phillips had a previous relationship with the MDL team, serving as a practice management consultant through Thrivos Consulting.
Phillips, along with financial advisors and former Dynasty Financial Partners executives Michael Brown and Brian Flynn, founded Journey in January 2021.
Based in Summit, N.J., Journey is structured as a hybrid RIA, affiliated with broker/dealer Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments. They are looking to tuck in advisor teams, but firm principals say they will provide more services than the typical affiliation platform, particularly with consulting around practice management. In addition to tucking in, advisors may also choose to sell all or part of their practice to Journey.
When an advisor joins the firm, they come under Journey’s ADV, but they still own their book of business if they decide to leave. Journey provides the essential functions advisors need to run their businesses, including operations and billing, human resources and payroll, investment management, financial planning support, technology, home office support and marketing. Advisors that join Journey can keep their administrative staff, associate advisors and anyone else who is client-facing, and their entire team goes onto Journey’s payroll.
The firm also recently launched a 1099 model, allowing advisors to operate as independent contractors.
Phillips said the average advisor affiliated with Journey has just over two years of tenure and revenue growth of 99% over that time period.
