The mill: brokerage giant LPL stakes a claim in suburban charlotte, led by ex-queen city financial executive Dan Arnold.

• Author: Mildenberg, David
• Position: MONEY TALK: (North Carolina's financial set

Valued at more than $3.5 billion, LPL Financial prides itself on being one of the most important financial companies that most people have never heard of. Even fewer may know the increasingly primary role that the Charlotte region--or, should we say, Fort Mill, S.C.--plays at the company. That's where LPL built a glittery $150 million office building last year to house about 1,400 people, with hopes of doubling that number over the next few years. But that's a parochial quibble. While the site is 6 miles south of the state line on oft-congested Interstate 77, LPL has deep roots in the Queen City after its 2007 purchase of a company led by the guy who now runs the entire business.

Dan Arnold was a 30-year-old Georgia Tech electrical engineering grad who had worked at BellSouth and MCI before joining Charlotte-based Uvest. Charlotte banker and headhunter John Robison co-founded Uvest as an investment bank in 1978, later shifting to discount stock trading. When Arnold came aboard in 1994, it was losing money, according to a Business North Carolina story in 1999.

Over the next 13 years, Uvest moved into more lucrative lines, including offering brokerage services at banks. Boston-based LPL bought the business when it had 200 employees, and Arnold moved to the company's San Diego office to lead strategic planning and, later, the institution-services division. He was named president in 2015 and became CEO in January, succeeding Mark Casady, 55, who had held the job since 2004. Arnold, 51, who declined an interview request, remains in San Diego, the company's other key hub with more than 1,500 workers.

LPL serves as a back office for financial advisers who prefer their independence to working for big brokerages such as Merrill Lynch or Wells Fargo Advisors. (LPL stands for Linsco and Private Ledger, which merged in 1989.) In some cases, established stockbrokers can make more money aligned with LPL than with better-known peers, a formula that has helped LPL grow rapidly, if not smoothly, over the last decade.

The company went public in 2010 and shares initially sold for about $30. Shares topped $50 in 2014 and traded at about $40 in mid-March. LPL paid $70 million in fines and restitution in 2014 and 2015 related to compliance problems that followed its rapid growth after the IPO. Senior management turned over repeatedly under Casady, according to an Investment Neivs story last April.

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