Raymond James Nabs 3 from Morgan Stanley

Three advisors with almost a million dollars in production have joined Raymond James in Newtorn, Pa.

Former Morgan Stanley advisors Philip T. Maurer, David M. Kushner and Barbara Maurer have joined the firm’s traditional employee broker-dealer channel as M2K Financial of Raymond James. Together they oversaw $146 million in assets and produced around $935,000 in fees and commissions.

“With their extensive experience, they have successfully developed their practice with a true client-first approach,” Tom Walrond, the regional director to whom the team will report, said in a statement. “We are delighted they chose Raymond James to support their efforts and help them grow their business.”

Philip Maurer joins with 12 years of industry experience having started at Prudential in 2000. He also worked at Wachovia and Citigroup before merging into Morgan Stanley in 2009. He focuses on specialty equity income portfolio management.

His wife, Barbara Maurer, began her career at Merrill Lynch in 1987, according to Raymond James. .

Kushner had been at Morgan Stanley since 2008 and is vice president, investments for the group. He will be dealing primarily with corporate retirement plans, specifically 401(k) plans.

The group is joined by their client service associate, Bernadette D’Onofrio.

Earlier this week, Raymond James announced that the total number of advisors had fallen by 62 over the year to 5,427 due to the exodus of lower producing Morgan Keegan advisors. The firm reiterated, however, that it continued to expand its advisory force by picking up outside teams.

“Recruiting activity remains robust,” Raymond James said in their earnings release.

The firm recently snapped up another wirehouse team from Wells Fargo in its independent advisory channel.