LPL’s New Leader Moves Past CEO Firing With Eye on Firm’s Growth
(Bloomberg) — LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Rich Steinmeier took the helm of the wealth-management company in a less-than-traditional manner.
He found out he’d be getting the job just one day before the firm announced, in October, the firing of company veteran Dan Arnold for cause – and without payment of most severance or outstanding equity awards – over still-undisclosed comments he’d made to employees. Steinmeier, then LPL’s chief growth officer, had always wanted to lead a company, but that timeline suddenly became expedited.
“Obviously, it was a crisis transition – we hadn’t been anticipating it,” Steinmeier said in his first interview since taking the role. “I braced for something that was going to be a lot worse than it ended up being.”
After serving temporarily as CEO for several weeks, Steinmeier, 51, was given the position permanently later that month. He said he hadn’t been worried that the role would be too big for him or that he wasn’t ready, but was concerned about the market’s reaction to the news.
Still, he took the job at a healthy time for wealth-management firms, with the assets of the mass affluent swelling with the post-election market surge — and LPL has benefited along with the rest of the industry. The firm’s total net new assets of $157.3 billion for the fourth quarter blew past Wall Street analysts’ estimates of $106.1 billion and net income grew more than 24% from a year earlier to $270.7 million.
