Cambridge’s new RIA sets floor to make a deal

investmentnews.com:

Cambridge Investment Inc.’s new registered investment advisor business, BridgePort, is taking its first steps into the red-hot buyers’ market of wealth management firms by offering a minimum investment of 20% of the seller’s firm, according to industry sources familiar with Cambridge’s strategy.

Introduced at the start of the year, BridgePort Financial Solutions is focusing on strategic acquisitions and is looking to buy a minority, majority, or full ownership stake in their business, according to an announcement by the company. Firms can also adopt the BridgePort brand or keep their own.

“Retention of the financial advisors is job number one for Cambridge, and setting that minimum of 20% helps them do that,” said one industry executive, who asked to speak privately with InvestmentNews.

A spokesperson for Cambridge Investment Research did not return a call Monday morning to comment.

With 3,800 financial advisors, Cambridge Investment Research is one of the largest independent broker-dealers in the industry, with one RIA, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, working with $87.4 billion in client assets. Launched by industry veteran Eric Schwartz in the 1980s, Cambridge is well known as a firm that uses an open platform of products and custody services to fit financial advisors’ businesses.

But Cambridge, like its competitors LPL Financial and Commonwealth Financial Network, for several years has been trying to remodel as an RIA; advisory firms, which charge clients quarterly fees, are widely considered more valuable right now in the marketplace than broker-dealers, which charge commissions for transactions and have a wide variety of conflicts to consider when selling products to clients.

For example, Cambridge