Commonwealth teams jump to Cetera, Osaic, Raymond James: Advisor Moves

October 30, 2025 6:18 PM

Commonwealth Financial Network advisors keep voting with their feet, moving to firms like Cetera, Osaic and Raymond James rather than make a new home at LPL Financial.

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo pulled three teams from Merrill, Osaic nabbed a team from Primerica (and got hit with a lawsuit as a result) and Stifel sold its channel for independent advisors. Read about all that, and a big promotion at Wells, below.

Financial Advisor Christian Benard-b&w.jpg

Christian R. Benard has left Commonwealth Financial Network to start Innovative Financial at Cetera.

Cetera Financial Group

Commonwealth advisors with nearly $850M go to Cetera, Osaic, Raymond James

Amid their firm's absorption by LPL Financial, Commonwealth Financial Network advisors continued to jump ship, this week leaving for industry rivals Cetera, Osaic and Raymond James.

Cetera Financial Group announced the addition of one large Commonwealth team and Osaic the addition of two smaller ones, while Raymond James said separately that it had brought on yet another ex-Commonwealth advisor.

Cetera recruited a team led by Christian R. Benard operating under the name Innovative Financial. The group had roughly $365 million in assets under administration at Commonwealth. Benard started his career in 2001 and moved to Commonwealth in 2006. His firm, based in Troy, Michigan, specializes in tax planning.

That helped make Cetera, with in-house tax specialist firm Avantax, a natural home, Benard said in a press release. Also appealing was Cetera's use of Fidelity Investments' National Financial Services custody system, which Commonwealth also uses for safeguarding client assets.

Also, Benard said in a press release, "Cetera has what originally brought me to Commonwealth — the ability to talk to real people and easily get answers without a lot of complicated explanations."

Many have questioned whether most Commonwealth advisors could ever feel comfortable joining the much larger LPL. Commonwealth had roughly 2,900 advisors when LPL announced its purchase plans. LPL now has more than 29,000.

Meanwhile, Osaic's recruits this week include Gallagher Financial Services, an advisory group that had formerly managed $194 million at Commonwealth in St. Paul, Minnesota. Gallagher Financial Services is led by Mark Gallagher, who started in the industry in 1984 and moved to Commonwealth in 1995.

Osaic also announced this week that it had recruited Four Pillars Investment Management, which had managed roughly $143 million for Commonwealth in Cape Coral, Florida. The team is led by John T. Evans, who started at Edward Jones in 2009 and moved to Commonwealth in 2023.

Raymond James, meanwhile, announced it had recruited Kirk Huismann from Commonwealth, where he had managed $144 million. Huismann started at Commonwealth in 2022, operating under the name Friedline Financial in Lee's Summit, Missouri.

Wells Fargo recruits three Merrill advisors overseeing $722M in total

Wells Fargo Advisors racked up another recruiting win this week, pulling in three advisors from Merrill Lynch in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The new additions — Sivakumar Veerapandy, Timothy Cappadona and Minesh Patel — together oversaw more than $722 million in client assets at Merrill in parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania near New York City. Veerapandy, now in Yardley, Pennsylvania, started in the securities industry in 2007 and joined Morgan Stanely in 2009 and Merrill in 2015.

Cappadona, in Paramus, New Jersey, started his career in 1998 at Prudential Securities, joined Smith Barney in 2001 (which was fully acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2013) and moved to Merrill in 2016. Patel, also in Paramus, started at Prudential in 1995 and followed a similar career path to Cappadona's, ending up at Merrill in 2016.

Like most of its wirehouse rivals, Wells Fargo no longer reports advisor headcounts. The last time Wells reported the number, in early 2023, the tally stood at around 12,000 advisors.

Osaic pulls $540M team from Primerica, gets hit with raiding claim

Osaic's addition of a prominent advisory team in Georgia was soured by allegations that the recruiting deal was an illegal corporate raid.

Osaic announced this week that the longtime advisor Brian Collins and various colleagues were joining it to start Legacy Investment Advisors & Wealth Management in Hurricane, West Virginia. The team had previously managed roughly $540 million in client assets at Primerica.

Even before Osaic announced the move, it and Legacy Investment Advisors were hit in federal court in Georgia with allegations of unfair competition and illegal corporate raiding. Primerica's complaint said the team's departure deprived it of about 96% of its assets in its West Virginia branch. Raiding claims are typically made against firms accused of intentionally seeking to destroy a rival's business in a particular geographic area or field of expertise.

Osaic said in a statement that the allegations against it, Legacy Investment Advisor and Collins — who started at Primerica in 1988 — are without merit.

"Brian [Collins] has acted responsibly and within his contractual obligations every step of the way, including refraining from soliciting former clients, safeguarding any prior materials for Primerica's retrieval, and relying solely on the personal relationships he has built independently over his 30-year career as a true business owner," according to the statement. "Clients have the freedom to choose who they work with, and Brian continues to serve only those who seek him out."

Stifel selling independent channel to Equitable Advisors

The large broker-dealer Stifel has agreed to sell its channel for independent advisors to Equitable Advisors.

The terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, were not disclosed.

Stifel's unit for advisors operating as independent contractors, rather than direct employees, has about 110 advisors. They make up roughly 5% of Stifel's total headcount of 2,300 advisors.

The independent advisors manage roughly $9 billion in client assets, or just over 1.5% of Stifel's $544 billion in total assets.

Stifel Chairman and CEO Ron Kruszewski has generally favored his firm's more profitable employee channel and recently deemed the independent unit "immaterial" to Stifel's growth plans. In a statement, he said the sale "reinforces Stifel's unwavering commitment to our core employee-channel advisory business," while ensuring the independent advisors are joining an "excellent partner."

Equitable Advisors, which came in at the No. 9 spot in Financial Planning's latest ranking of the largest independent broker-dealers by revenue, 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.

The industry publication AdvisorHub first reported Stifel's plans to sell its independent channel.

Wells Fargo names head of its clearing and custody business

Wells Fargo has appointed a new top executive for First Clearing, its clearing and custody business for independent broker-dealers.

Leeann Markovitz, who has been Wells for 30 years, is taking over the reins of First Clearing from Al Caiazzo, who is planning to retire at the end of the year. Markovitz joined First Clearing in 2024, most recently working as a relationship manager. Before that, she was an executive vice president and head of affluent client solutions.

First Clearing provides various services to registered investment advisors, such as holding their client assets for safekeeping and providing various types of trading and technological support.

"Leeann's deep industry knowledge, collaborative approach, and passion for supporting firms make her the ideal leader to guide First Clearing into its next chapter," Erik Karanik, head of Independent Solutions at Wells Fargo, said in a statement.