$2.3B ICG Next Leaves LPL for Osaic with Plans for M&A
ICG next, a Wall Township, N.J.-based wealth manager that launched with LPL Financial in 2019, has left to join independent broker/dealer Osaic.
The firm, which manages about $2.3 billion in client assets, was founded by Managing Partner James Costabile and includes about 21 financial advisors, as well as client service and operations staff. Constabile had been an advisor with Ameriprise for about 16 years before moving to LPL, according to BrokerCheck. ICG has nearly tripled in size since 2019, Osaic said, and has plans to continue expanding through a combination of advisor recruiting, acquisitions and organic growth.
The win is part of a push by Shannon Reid, president and head of advisor growth and engagement for Osaic, to convince advisor teams that the firm offers a more personal experience with the scale of a large IBD, the executive said in a recent interview with Wealth Management.
“One of my key goals for Osaic, short-term and long-term, is to bring large firm resources, but make the firm feel small and personal for advisors,” Reid said. “Particularly with James and that team, I think one of the key elements was coming to a firm that, while having the scale to deliver resources, really seeks to feel smaller and more personal.”
Reid has been with Osaic for a little under a year, having joined after about 18 years at Raymond James, most recently as president of the independent contractor division. She said she has maintained a practice at Osaic to staff a large advisor service team, to ensure advisors can get help when they need it.
“While we have on the independent side about two times the number of advisors at Osaic that I had when I was running the independent channel at RJ [Raymond James], we also have about three times the relationship leaders and relationship team—maybe even more than three times—and we continue to invest in it because that’s a really critical relationship to help connect advisors to each other and to the firm,” she said.
San Diego-based Osaic, which is owned by private equity firm Reverence Capital, has been working to both keep and draw more advisors after suffering attrition amid its so-called “Journey to One,” which it started in 2023 to rebrand and integrate eight affiliated broker/dealers.
Reid said the ability to present a unified organization, including its technology stack, is a draw for advisor teams like ICG, but that as technology and firms advance, the relationships and services will come to matter even more.
“What is going to become more and more important over time is the relationship,” she said. “Platforms are platforms. We all have largely the same resources … but ultimately, what differentiates it, and what I think is really going to be the differentiator, is advisors feeling like they have a real partner who knows them.”
Osaic has also recently been a player in the movement of advisors from Commonwealth Financial Network, which LPL Financial acquired last year.
Despite that attrition, LPL has also been ramping up its recruiting efforts, reporting a 35% year-over-year jump in recruited assets in the second quarter and a 47% quarter-to-quarter increase.
Reid, for her part, said Osaic can compete against both the large IBDs and RIA consolidators. She argued that the RIA consolidators are not offering the independence they may promise.
“If there are RIAs out there that are buying practices and they’re telling you the advisors are still independent, it’s not really true,” she said. “The RIA owns the assets … advisors cannot take those clients, they can’t solicit those clients … a lot of what makes the multiples work is really saying, come to our firm, adopt our name, adopt our model, adopt our investments, and when you go, your team will go.”
