Commonwealth recruits big team ahead of LPL purchase

Commonwealth Financial Network’s looming acquisition by LPL Financial isn’t halting its recruiting engines, as evidenced this week by its pulling yet another substantial advisory practice.

Patrick Funke & Associates, a firm in Phoenix, Arizona, with $430 million under management, announced Tuesday that it is joining Commonwealth Financial Network from the independent broker-dealer Osaic, an industry rival of Commonwealth. The change comes as LPL Financial moves forward with its plans to buy Commonwealth for $2.7 billion, a deal expected to close in the second half of the year.

When those acquisition plans were announced in March, many in the industry wondered if Commonwealth advisors who had come to the firm because of its relatively small size would find a comfortable home at the much larger LPL. Commonwealth has slightly more than 2,900 advisors, whereas LPL’s headcount is pushing 30,000.

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LPL executives have sought to combat the notion that their firm is too big by promising to retain every attribute of Commonwealth that made it distinctive. That includes not only its brand but also many of its support services for advisors, technology and general ways of doing business.

Patrick Funke & Associates’ announcement this week that it will join Commonwealth is a sign that the coming LPL purchase isn’t as off-putting as some predicted it would be. Funke started his career 33 years ago at Princor Financial Services, according to BrokerCheck. He was affiliated with various firms over the years and joined Securities America in 2020. Securities America was acquired by Osaic — then named Advisor Group — in 2019 as part of a group of companies formerly operating as Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services.

In a statement about the move, Patrick Funke made nods both towards Commonwealth and LPL.

“When we last changed our partner firm, it was for additional size and scale,” Funke said in a statement. “That’s not enough, though, because relationships are the lifeblood of our firm.

The Commonwealth model means partnering with a high-level, professional team that’s relationship-focused, not transaction-oriented. Looking ahead, Commonwealth and LPL will give us the foundation to grow our practice.”

Jennifer Funke, Patrick’s wife and business partner, also emphasized the benefits of joining Commonwealth.

“With the Commonwealth approach, we appreciate that when we have questions, people pick up the phone, listen, and call back promptly,” she said in a statement.

Patrick Funke & Associates isn’t the only practice Osaic has lost to Commonwealth Financial ahead of its acquisition by LPL. Earlier this month, Commonwealth announced it had picked up  a 30-member practice named Angelo Planning Group, a team based in Rochester, New York, with $1.5 billion under management, from Osaic.