ON THE MOVE-LPL adds adviser practice with $1 bln in assets

Aug 14 (Reuters) - LPL Financial, the largest U.S. independent broker-dealer by revenue, just got a little bigger after landing a Birmingham, Alabama-based wealth management practice with $1 billion in client assets.

Bridgeworth Financial, a registered investment advisory firm, said on Tuesday it left Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp to form its own independent practice affiliated with LPL. The 16 advisers at Bridgeworth had an annual production of about $5.2 million last year.

"We're seeing a growing flight to quality happening in the independent channel," Bill Morrissey, LPL's executive vice president of business development, said in an interview about the new additions. "Not just large individual advisers, but also groups of advisers like Bridgeworth are looking to make a change."

Bridgeworth also got a boost from a recent merger with PinOak Advisors LLC, an independent financial advisory practice. The deal adds advisers Jeris Burns and David LeCompte, as well as senior investment strategist Pete McCarn to the firm. Burns and LeCompte joined LPL via Bridgeworth.

The addition of Bridgeworth to LPL comes after LPL announced earlier this month its partnership with Advantage Financial Group, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based partnership of advisers who manage about $2 billion in client assets.

Boston-based LPL provides brokerage, clearing and other professional services to roughly 13,000 self-employed brokers and advisers. In the second quarter, the firm generated $908 million in revenue from brokers overseeing $353 billion in client assets.

LPL has grown by adding individual advisers and teams, as well as larger independent practices like Bridgeworth, to its broker-dealer platform.

Morrissey said consolidation in the industry, as well as deteriorating margins at bigger firms and changes in the industry's regulatory environment have acted as catalysts for adviser movement into the independent space.

"Our recruiting volume has been quite steady," Morrissey said.