Commonwealth loses billion-dollar advisor teams to Raymond James, Cetera

October 9, 2025 3:01 PM

The Manning Group, a team managing $1.1 billion in client assets, has joined Raymond James from Commonwealth Financial Network.

Commonwealth advisors' steady tromp to the exits continued this week following the boutique firm's purchase by LPL Financial in the summer.

Raymond James kept up its almost weekly announcements about recruiting Commonwealth teams, while Cetera nabbed its own Commonwealth advisory group with a large AUM tally. Wells Fargo, Osaic and RBC also had notable recruiting deals, while Mercer Global Advisors went to Hollywood with a large acquisition. Check it out below.

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Raymond James pulls $1.7B teams from Commonwealth, $850M team from Equitable

Raymond James keeps going to the Commonwealth Financial Network pulling up AUM and large advisor teams.

The Manning Companies, a five-advisor group in San Diego, California, has joined Raymond James Financial Services, the firm's channel for independent advisors. The advisors had previously managed $1.1 billion at Commonwealth Financial Network.

Commonwealth has seen quite a few large teams head for the door since it was bought in August by its former industry rival LPL Financial. Easily one of the biggest beneficiaries of those departures has been Raymond James, which has announced teams recruited from Commonwealth virtually every week since the purchase deal closed.

Separately this week, Raymond James announced it had gone to Commonwealth again to pull over a firm named Pioneer Valley Financial Group. The six-person team had previously managed $660 million in Ludlow, Massachusetts.

The team is led by Edward Sokolowski, who started in 1992 at Equitable and moved to Commonwealth in 1999.

A big question hanging over the acquisition of Commonwealth has been how many of the firm's advisors and how much of its assets under management LPL will be able to retain. LPL has set itself the ambitious goal of transferring over 90% of the 2,900 advisors and $285 billion in assets the Commonwealth had when the purchase plans were announced.

In a recent report, the industry analyst Steven Chubak of Wolfe Research said Commonwealth appears to have lost about 5% of its headcount since the LPL purchase. Chubak expressed optimism LPL would meet its retention goal.

"Our team has been monitoring [Commonwealth] trends quite closely, and while [Commonwealth] attrition has picked up these last three months, that's consistent with prior deal seasonality where attrition accelerates 3 to 6 months post announcement," Chubak wrote.

Meanwhile, Raymond James announced it's boosting its channel for independent advisors with an 11-advisor team recruited from Equitable Advisors. The members of Southwest Wealth Strategies had formerly managed $850 million at Equitable Advisors, which came in at the No. 9 spot in Financial Planning's ranking of the largest independent broker-dealers by revenue. Southwest Wealth Strategies has its headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, and offices in Las Vegas, Nevada; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Bozeman, Montana.

The team is led by managing partner John Arnold and senior partners Ray Dimuzio, Mark Asher, Chris Lanier, Ben Miles and Nick Obie.

Equitable Advisors, based in New York, is the wealth management arm of Equitable Financial Life Insurance. Its parent company is Equitable Holdings, which was spun off from the French insurer AXA in 2018 and which now also has a controlling stake in the research and private wealth firm AllianceBernstein. Equitable Advisors has more than $100 billion in assets under administration and roughly 4,500 financial professionals in the U.S.

Raymond James, which came in at the No. 5 spot in this year's IBD Elite ranking, had 8,787 advisors when it last reported a headcount, in October 2024. Of those, 3,826 were direct employees and 4,961 were independent contractors.

Cetera gains $1.1B team in another Commonwealth defection

Citing LPL Financial's acquisition of their previous firm as an "inflexion point," a large former Commonwealth Financial Network team has moved over to Cetera.

King Financial Network, a 14-member team in Manalapan, New Jersey, has joined the Cetera affiliate Summit Financial Networks. King Financial previously had roughly $1.1 billion in assets under administration at Commonwealth, which was purchased by LPL Financial in August.

King Financial founder Jim King called that deal, valued at $2.7 billion, "an inflection point" in his and colleagues' careers.

"We're grateful for everything Commonwealth has done for us," King said in a statement. "[Commonwealth] CEO Wayne Bloom and his outstanding team helped us grow in 10 years from $108 million in assets to over $1.1 billion."

Cetera has been among the firms aggressively courting Commonwealth advisors. In an "open letter" published online, Cetera Wealth Management President Todd Mackay offered Commonwealth advisors transition assistance equal to as much as 150 basis points — or 1.5% — of their assets under management for accepting a recruitment deal.

Mackay said in an interview Wednesday that Cetera has been enjoying one of its strongest recruiting years ever in 2025, bolstered in part by teams pulled from Commonwealth.

He said it's little surprise that Commonwealth advisors have been looking at "what they've really enjoyed over decades at Commonwealth in terms of the community, the support infrastructure, the opportunities for growth and personalized consulting within their business, and then where they can find that elsewhere in the market."

"And what we're hearing from many, many advisors out there — Commonwealth and others — is that's exactly what Cetera brings to the table that others don't," Mackay said.

Although Cetera has recruited other advisors from Commonwealth, King Financial is the first to come over since Cetera entered into a custody arrangement with Fidelity Investments' National Financial Services custody system, which provides safekeeping and various types of technological support for client assets. Commonwealth's own custody arrangement is with Fidelity NFS, and the absence of any need to change custodians should ease transitions for advisors moving to Cetera.

Besides King, King Financial Network is led by partners Tony Kelly and Anthony Joseph "A.J." Vignola. King started his career in 1992 at John Hancock Distributors and eventually moved to LPL in 2000. Kelly began his career at LPL in 2009 and Vignola started there in 2014. All three moved to Commonwealth in 2015.

Firms affiliated with Cetera have more than $590 billion in assets under administration and $263 billion in assets under management. It provides support to roughly 12,000 advisors.

Wells Fargo’s indie channel recruits teams with nearly $550M in total assets

Wells Fargo's channel for independent advisors has drawn teams managing nearly $550 million in total from Citi, LPL Financial and Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors.

Christopher Geary and Alan Markfeld have joined Granite Wealth Management, which is part of Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, or FiNet, for independent advisors. They had each managed roughly $142 million for Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors in Richmond, Virginia.

Geary started his career at Ameriprise in 2003 and moved to Securities America, National Planning Corp. and other firms before landing at Gallagher in 2023. Markfeld began in the industry in 1992 and had stints at various firms before also going to Gallagher in 2023.

Separately, Robert Sforza joined the FiNet affiliate Retirement Plan Consulting Group. He had previously managed $170 million at Citi in Long Island. Sforza started his career at Wells Fargo Investments in 2007 and made his way to Citi in 2022 after stints at various firms.

And Sean Wenham joined the FiNet affiliate Green Wealth Management Group. He had managed $96 million at LPL in Boca Raton, Florida. Wenham started in the industry in 1995, went to Merrill in 1994 after taking several years off and moved to LPL in 2021 after time at U.S. Bank.

Osaic draws $453M team from Ameriprise

Osaic is extending its presence in Oregon with a team recruited from Ameriprise Financial.

Pilot Rock Financial Advisors is joining the independent broker-dealer Osaic in Medford, Oregon. The eight-person team had previously managed $453 million in client assets at Ameriprise.

The Pilot Rock team includes the advisors Nathan Salhus, Mark Degner, Richard Wilson II, Brian Griffith, Nicolas Nachbur, Ryan Westfall, Robert Cavens and Ryan Wilson. Osaic, with nearly $4.9 billion in annual revenue last year, came in at the No. 3 spot in Financial Planning's 2025 "IBD Elite" ranking of the biggest independent broker-dealers. Ameriprise, with $7.23 billion in annual revenue, was at the No. 2 spot.

RBC recruits $400M advisor from RIA Northwest Financial

RBC's U.S. wealth management arm has picked up a solo advisor from the registered investment advisory Northwest Financial Advisors.

James Christy has joined RBC Wealth Management-U.S. in Tysons, Virginia, from Northwest Financial, where he had managed roughly $400 million. Christy was at Northwest for 22 years, according to an RBC press release. Before becoming an advisor, he had worked as a corporate lawyer and eventually served as counsel to the secretary of the interior in the Reagan administration.

Mercer acquires $1.2B firm with entertainment industry expertise

The RIA aggregator Mercer Global Advisors is making its mark in Hollywood with the purchase of a firm specializing in helping actors, writers and others in the entertainment industry.

Private equity-backed Mercer announced this week that it had bought Singer Burke, a wealth, tax and business management firm in Los Angeles. The acquisition adds $1.2 billion in client assets and more than 60 financial professionals to Mercer's current totals of $83 billion in assets and more than 1,350 employees.

Singer Burke consists of two units: the registered investment advisor SB Capital Management, and Singer Burke Zimmer & Kogan, which provides accounting, tax planning, business management and financial consulting. The firm is joining Mercer's Regis Group, which works primarily with families with $25 million or more in investable assets. Mercer said Singer Burke will be "the cornerstone" of its specialty practice for the entertainment and media industries.

Singer Burke was founded in 1972 and has worked with showrunners, producers, writers and actors on popular TV shows such as "Bridgerton," "Family Guy" and "The Walking Dead." The acquisition marks Mercer's 12th this year and fourth with a firm with $1 billion or more in assets.

Mercer has its headquarters in Denver and more than 100 offices throughout the U.S. It is majority owned by the private equity firms Oak Hill Capital, Genstar Capital and Altas Partners.

Focus affiliate Badgley Phelps buys $439M firm

The Focus Financial Partners-affiliated firm Badgley Phelps Wealth Managers is building on its presence in the Pacific Northwest with an acquisition closing in the fourth quarter.

Marshall & Sullivan, a wealth management firm founded in Seattle in 1981, will bring $439 million in client assets to Badgley Phelps' current total of $6.6 billion. Badgley Phelps, itself headquartered in Seattle, is an affiliate of the large RIA aggregator Focus Financial Partners.

Badgley Phelps specializes in providing portfolio management to high net worth and ultrahigh net worth clients. It joined Focus Financial in 2021.

Focus Financial earlier this year completed an internal overhaul and rebranding campaign that saw it reorganized into five "hubs" operating under the Focus name. Each of the hubs is essentially a separate business line with its own specialty. Its hub Cardinal Point, Focus Partners Canada, for instance, has expertise in working across the Canadian-U.S. border.

After a few years as a public company, Focus was brought back into private hands in 2023 through a deal by the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice valuing it at roughly $7 billion. Focus now manages more than $400 billion in client assets, according to its website.