Industry

Raymond James has added four firms with total assets of $410 million to its RIA division, said Mike DiGirolamo, senior vice president and managing director of the Investment Advisors Division of Raymond James Financial Services.

Here’s one way RIA firms can measure their firms’ success: they can see everything from where their revenue is coming from to total assets under management — benchmarked to other firms — the same way you’d look at dials on a car dashboard.

Washington Wealth Management, a breakaway RIA founded last December, continued its explosive growth by acquiring its third breakaway advisor in just the past three weeks, bringing it ever closer to $1 billion in AUM.

Goldman Sachs' asset management division has agreed to purchase the mutual fund division of Dividend Growth Advisors, in a push to offer more income-generating funds.

Fifty-two percent of executives at asset management firms expect bonuses for distribution and marketing professionals to rise in 2012, and 39% foresee additional hiring, according to a Russell Reynolds survey of 529 executives.

ProShares, the fifth-largest provider of exchange-traded funds in the U.S., has created a new post, head of capital markets, and named Stephen Sachs to the position.

Putnam Investments announced last week that in 2011, it has expanded its wholesaling staff by 20%, bringing its total external wholesalers to 54 and nearly as many internally. Wholesalers who recently joined Putnam include:

Wells Fargo Advisors hired advisor Zoran Vaz in Melville, N.Y. from David Lerner Associates. Vaz joined the firm on Nov. 4, and had $844,000 in annual fees and commissions and $111 million in client assets under management.

The managing director, national sales director & chief operating officer of private wealth management at Robert W. Baird & Co. discusses his 22 years in the securities business.

In On Wall Street's fifth annual ranking, the young hotshots of The Street talk clients and strategy. Here's how this year's top 40 advisors under 40 conquered a tough market.