Conte Wealth moves $1.4 billion from Cambridge to LPL

Anthony Conte has been registered with Cambridge Investment Research since 2009. On Tuesday, the Conte Wealth Advisors website went offline with a note about 'a few improvements.' When it returned, the firm's disclosure named LPL Financial as the provider of its securities and advisory services.

Conte Wealth, based near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, manages about $1.4 billion in client assets. The firm has 20 financial advisors. That works out to an average of $70 million per advisor. No independent broker-dealer would willingly lose such a book. InvestmentNews reported the move, citing a senior industry executive who spoke privately. Neither Conte nor Cambridge returned calls, and an LPL spokesperson also did not respond, according to the outlet. The reason for the departure is unexplained.

About a year ago, LPL paid $2.7 billion in cash for Commonwealth Financial Network, a firm whose advisors had shown unusual loyalty. InvestmentNews says the recruitment fight for Commonwealth's people has now spread through the independent broker-dealer market. Conte Wealth's potential exit puts Cambridge in that path.

Cambridge is no marginal player. It is the largest privately held independent broker-dealer still standing, and its recruiting numbers are strong. In the first half of 2026, InvestmentNews counted 189 new advisors. They brought roughly $6.8 billion in assets under advisement. Annualized revenue came to $55.9 million. The same stretch a year earlier produced 185 advisors. Their assets totaled $5.1 billion. Four advisors added this year brought nearly $1.7 billion in assets. They added more than $10 million in revenue. The firm is attracting larger, more established teams—exactly the ones LPL is now pursuing.

If the move goes through, the math is harsh. Cambridge added 189 advisors in the first half. The departing team has 20 advisors. That would erase more than a tenth of the total. The firm recruited $6.8 billion in new assets. Conte's $1.4 billion would claw back a fifth. A strong quarter does not look so strong when one team walks out with a slice that size.

LPL has kept recruiting. Last month it said it hired HighWater Wealth, a San Diego team with about $2.4 billion in advisory assets. Some Commonwealth advisors have left for rivals over the past year. LPL has long ranked among the industry's top recruiters on bonus pay. That matters when the target is a group of 20 advisors. Their average book is $70 million. The HighWater and Conte reports point the same direction: LPL wants big chunks, not single advisors.

LPL operates as the broker-dealer arm of publicly traded LPL Financial Holdings. Cambridge is private. A public share price can be recruiting currency; private ownership allows the patience that quarterly earnings calls rarely permit. That difference is part of every recruiting conversation between the two firms.

InvestmentNews published Cambridge's first-half recruiting totals this month. The Conte Wealth report followed days later. The proximity is likely coincidental, but it leaves Cambridge with its best six months and a high-profile departure sitting side by side.

The move would close Anthony Conte's 17-year registration with Cambridge. LPL would gain a concentrated book in central Pennsylvania. Cambridge would be left with its own numbers as a reminder: the teams coming in are larger, and the teams leaving are larger too. The recruiting war that started with Commonwealth has reached a privately held rival that thought it was just doing the hiring.