LPL Financial has a deal in place to purchase the wealth management business of Waddell & Reed for $300 million, ThinkAdvisor reported. Waddell & Reed's wealth management business currently has 921 independent advisors and $63 billion in assets under administration.  At the end of the third quarter LPL Financial had 17,168 advisors. The acquisition is expected to close in the middle of next year, and is still subject to regulatory approval and stockholder approval. 

Waddell & Reed was recently purchased by Australia-based Macquarie Asset Management in a $1.7 billion deal.  Macquarie will maintain control of Waddell & Reed's asset management business. Macquarie and LPL also agreed to a long-term deal in which Macquarie will be an asset management partner to LPL. 

Earlier this year, LPL announced that it had acquired E.K. Riley Investments, a broker-dealer with $2 billion in client assets under management. LPL also acquired Blaze Portfolio this year, a provider of portfolio trading and rebalancing tools. 

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