LPL Financial Holdings, the largest independent broker-dealer and registered investment adviser in the United States, is exploring strategic alternatives, including a potential sale. Goldman Sachs is assisting on a sale process.  There is no certainty that a deal will be reached.

Private equity firms TPG Capital and Hellman & Friedman took LPL public in 2010 at $30 per share – and today the stock is selling for about $33 a share.

The move comes as LPL faces a number of obstacles: (i) an adverse low-interest rate environment;  (ii) higher costs of regulatory compliance;  (iii) lower commissions on some high-fee investment offerings:  and (iv) need to invest more in technology infrastructure and personnel. LPL’s net profit margin at the end of June was around 4.8%.

Based in Boston, LPL provides technology, clearing and compliance services, training, and independent research to more than 14,000 independent financial advisers and over 700 banks and credit unions. It provided services for approximately $502 billion in advisory and brokerage assets as of the end of August.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for LPL and other broker-dealers in the coming months is to overcome limitations on revenues that are associated with the DOL’s new fiduciary duty rules requiring brokers to put the interests of retirement savers ahead of their own, that will take effect in April.