Advisor Group is buying Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc., creating one of the largest independent broker-dealers ("IBD") in the country.

According to a recent InvestmentNews article, each share of Ladenburg's common stock will be converted into a cash payment of $3.50 a share. The total enterprise value of the transaction is about $1.3 billion. The combination of the two broker-dealer networks would create a giant firm with more than $450 billion in assets under management, $3 billion in annual revenues, and nearly 11,500 advisers.

Advisor Group currently has four broker-dealers in its network, including FSC Securities Corp., Royal Alliance Associates Inc., SagePoint Financial Inc., and Woodbury Financial. Together they produced $1.7 billion in total revenue in 2018. They have about 6,500 financial advisers and registered representatives. Reverence Capital Partners, a private equity firm, acquired 75% of Advisor Group from Lightyear Capital, PSP Investments and other investors earlier this year.

Ladenburg Thalmann began building its network of independent broker-dealers in 2007 when it bought Investacorp Inc. It later acquired Triad Advisors Inc., Securities America, Securities Service Network Inc., and KMS Financial Services Inc. Those firms had close to 4,400 advisers at the end of last year and reported $1.38 billion in total revenue at the end of 2018.