Steward Partners

At Merrill "it felt like we shifted away a little bit in recent years from the core focus of wealth management," advisor Matthew Spradlin explains.

The Raymond James affiliated firm has been aggressively recruiting from wirehouses in recent months.

Coming off a strong recruiting year, Steward Partners has enticed three more Wells Fargo brokers.

The advisors made their career change just prior to UBS's exit from the Broker Protocol on December 1.

Morgan Stanley alone lost 11 teams managing about $7 billion after its abrupt exit from the protocol pact, according to recent hiring announcements.

The independent firm affiliated with Raymond James has been on a recruiting tear this year.

The wirehouses have lost teams overseeing more than $12 billion in client assets over the past month, according to recent hiring announcements.

The fast-growing independent firm has picked up more than two dozen advisors this year.

The move is the latest in a series of departures from the wirehouses to smaller independent firms.

"This is a window for these regional firms to really explode," says Rob Blevins, a recruiter in Dublin, Ohio.

His move is also something of a reunion, as Steward Partners CEO Jim Gold once served as his manager at Smith Barney.

The new recruits, who previously worked at Wells Fargo Advisors and Janney Montgomery Scott, also pointed to the firm's affiliation with Raymond James in making the move.

The recruit made the move a week after the independent firm recruited three other wirehouse teams managing more than $600 million.

Switching firms can be a herculean task, but independent firm Steward Partners furnishes ex-wirehouse advisors with teams of specialists to ease the process.

HighTower and Dynasty added big platform clients as wirehouse brokers continued to flee.

William Blake, the independent firm's 10th hire this year, says he was attracted by the chance to become a partner.

Over 50 advisers have now joined the independent firm, which is affiliated with Raymond James.

The regional firm has added at least 17 ex-wirehouse advisers in the first three months of the year.

The independent firm affiliated with Raymond James recruited six advisers for a new branch office.

Recruits from Morgan Stanley and RBC joined the independent firm affiliated with Raymond James.