$1B ex-wirehouse team opts for employee status with independence

After its second straight quarter with a slight dropoff in its employee advisor headcount, one of the largest wealth managers added a billion-dollar wirehouse breakaway team.

A quartet of financial advisors in the Silver Liberatore Group dropped UBS to join the Raymond James employee channel, the company said May 3. The Chicago-area team managed $1.08 billion in client assets with their prior firm after decades at wirehouses, and they chose the firm’s Advisor Select program under its employee broker-dealer, Raymond James & Associates.

“Raymond James’ commitment to book and practice ownership and the support they provide to illustrate that commitment [were] a big part of what drew us to the firm,” 50-year veteran advisor Earl Silver said in a statement. Advisor Select “provides us the right balance of employee status and the increased independence of controlling our own office environment,” he said.

As Raymond James and rivals like LPL Financial and Commonwealth Financial Network vie for breakaway recruits, the firm is offering a more independent version of its employee channel under Advisor Select. Its employee advisor headcount has slipped by one advisor in the past 12 months to 3,375, although Raymond James CEO Paul Reilly said on the company’s first-quarter earnings call that there were “a lot of very, very high-quality teams” in the pipeline.

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Raymond James serves as a likely destination for advisors who often get fed up with wirehouse policies such as an emphasis on gaining new high-net-worth clients, according to recruiter Danny Sarch of Leitner Sarch Consultants. Teams pick the firms that enable them to retain their business, fix the burdensome policies and deliver value back to clients, he says.

“You have to be able to sell it to your clients,” Sarch says. “If you can do those things, then you've got the basis for a successful move, and Raymond James is able to check those boxes well.”

The Silver Liberatore Group had spent the past eight years with UBS following tenures with Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. In addition to Silver, the Deer Park, Illinois-based team includes advisors Ralph Liberatore, James Hack and Anastasios Liosatos, along with relationship manager Katherine Micek and client service associate Jill Bradley.

It’s “a client-focused team with more than 100 years of combined financial services experience, and we are pleased to welcome them to the firm,” Raymond James Midwest Regional Director Michael O’Meara said in a statement. “For distinguished advisors like them, who are looking for that unique combination of independence and support, we’re proud that Raymond James continues to be an optimal destination for them to go and grow.”

The firm’s employee channel could soon be drawing more recruits of a similar size, if the St. Petersburg, Florida-based firm’s earnings call is any indication. A higher number of retirements offset its improved recruiting in the channel, according to Reilly’s prepared remarks.

Over the last four quarters, the firm has recruited advisors with $285 million in trailing 12-month production and $44 billion in client assets. In its other channel, Raymond James added a net 180 advisors over that span to reach 4,952 independent contractors and a record 8,327 overall.

Predicting the incoming recruits would be reflected in the firm’s future numbers, he said there are “probably the largest group of large teams we've ever had in the recruiting pipeline.” In particular for big teams, the firm’s offers were “not even close to in the market” in the past, Reilly said.

“Now when we come into the finals we're not the highest, but we're in the ballpark, and so enough that people are saying they're willing to make the trade for the dollars, for the culture and the values,” Reilly said, according to a transcript by Seeking Alpha. “When we had deals that literally were almost twice as much as ours, it was hard for people to turn down the money even though they might have preferred coming here. So we aren't the highest, we are competitive and we think it's a fair package both and a good return for us.”