The Commonwealth diaspora dominates this week's AUM flow

Merit Financial closed its sixth acquisition of a former Commonwealth Financial team since LPL agreed to buy that firm last March. The latest pickup is Bridgeway Group, a $900 million practice. It raises the total Commonwealth assets Merit has pulled in to $4.7 billion, according to PWD's tracking.

That Bridgeway deal accounts for most of the week's disclosed AUM movement. Only one other deal in the same window carried a dollar figure, according to PWD's deal log: Hightower's Signature Wealth arm absorbed Valley Financial Group, a $275 million book. The rest of the log consisted of platform capability announcements, custody integrations, and retirement-planning tie-ups. None of them disclosed an AUM figure. The measurable money in motion this week is almost entirely the re-trading of advisors LPL just acquired.

Merit is a $30.1 billion RIA based outside Atlanta. It has now done 61 deals. Bridgeway is its third former Commonwealth firm of 2026. The transaction first appeared on the deal log in January, resurfaced in July, and closed at month-end.

Most large RIA acquisitions end with one buyer absorbing one seller. This one doesn't. The LPL-Commonwealth deal, announced in March 2025, has become a wholesale supplier of breakaway teams to the rest of the market. LPL's integration plan is what feeds its competitors.

The timing is as much mechanical as strategic. Integration windows are when teams get picked off: advisors face a new platform, clients face a new custody arrangement, and recruiters know exactly which books are in motion. LPL-Commonwealth remains pending on PWD's deal log, which makes the window longer than a typical merger close.

Hightower's $275 million pickup is small next to Merit's run. It's the same trade: remove a Commonwealth book before the integration settles.

LPL now projects the acquisition will add $25 million more in run-rate EBITDA than it first expected. It also sees advisor retention reaching 90%. The second figure carries a lot of weight. The latest recruiting roundup names Cetera, Hightower, IFP, LPL, and UBS as adding teams, with competitors explicitly picking off Commonwealth advisors. Merit alone has taken $4.7 billion. Hightower added a $275 million fold-in. The total approaches $5 billion in AUM moving out of the Commonwealth book since the deal was announced.

None of this necessarily breaks the 90% projection. Commonwealth's full AUM is not part of the disclosed deal data in PWD's tracking. Retention is calculated across the entire book, not just the slices large enough to sell. Six teams at Merit could be a rounding error at Commonwealth's scale. But the $25 million EBITDA bump and the recruiting log point in opposite directions. Merit alone has pulled $4.7 billion from the book. Hightower added another $275 million the same week. Together they suggest the integration risk has turned into a recruiting pipeline. Every team that leaves raises the price of the teams that stay.

The rest of the week's announced deals were zero-AUM transactions: platform capabilities, data integrations. They will matter eventually, but not as balance-sheet events. The LPL-Commonwealth deal is still pending. Each recruiting roundup between now and the close is a data point in LPL's retention projection. If the 90% figure holds, the EBITDA bump LPL projects is real. If not, the cost of the advisors who stay rises.