Raymond James' recruiters are staging a significant push to add advisors from the wirehouses before year-end. Over the past week, the firm's Private Client Group has brought on registered reps with over $1.75 billion in combined client assets from UBS, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
Recently both Morgan Stanley and UBS said they were leaving the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, which aims to facilitate the movement of advisors without violations of non-solicitation clauses or Securities and Exchange Commission Regulation S-P, which aims to protect client privacy. The protocol was launched in 2004 and has since been signed by over 1,600 firms seeking to avoid legal entanglements tied to recruiting.
Last week, Raymond James & Associates — the firm's traditional employee channel — brought on four advisors with a total of $550 million in client assets from Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley: Arthur Springer, CFP, CPA, MBA; Charles Seller; Michael Salvatore, CRPC; and Christopher Nolan, to its offices in Long Island and Westchester, New York, according to RJA North Atlantic Regional Director Tom Galvin.
Springer worked for Merrill since 1985, where he managed $230 million in client assets and had over $1 million in annual fees and commissions. "I liked the fact Raymond James owns a bank and is not owned by one," said Springer, in a statement.
Seller and Salvatore joined the firm in Westchester, New York, from Morgan Stanley, where they managed roughly $200 million in client assets and had about $1 million in annual production. Seller was with Morgan Stanley and its predecessor firms since 1979; Salvatore began working with him in 1991 at Smith Barney.
"Mike and I thought we'd stay at the same firm forever," said Seller, in a statement. "But about 18 months ago the industry shifted and we decided to explore opportunities at other firms."
Nolan comes to the Garden City, New York, office of Raymond James from Morgan Stanley, where he managed some $130 million in client assets. He started in the business in 2001 with Smith Barney, after having owned and managed his family's restaurant in Manhattan for 15 years prior; he also spent seven years with UBS before rejoining Morgan Stanley in 2009.
"I feel like I have returned home after being away," explained Nolan in a statement. "My branch manager Glenn Fischer originally hired me in 2001 at Smith Barney, in my first advisor role, so it's great to be reunited with him again.
Florida Hires
Tash Elwyn, president of Raymond James & Associates, said advisors Michael Zizmer, CFP, and Newton Jones, CIMA, moved to its operations in Winter Park, Florida, from UBS, where they previously managed about $440 million in client assets and had yearly fees and commissions of over $3.2 million.
"I believe our firm's reputation for respecting the advisor-client relationship as well as our stance on honoring the broker protocol helped persuade Mike and Newton that Raymond James was the right firm for them to continue to grow their business," Elwyn explained in a statement.
Zizmer began his career in 1988 at Merrill Lynch and moved to UBS in 2008. "The acquisition of Alex. Brown also gave us significantly more confidence that the high-net-worth platform we sought for clients would be there, and it is," he said in a statement.
Jones followed his father, a 30-year Merrill Lynch executive, into the business at Merrill Lynch's capital markets group in 1996. He and Zizmer moved to UBS in 2008.
Davidson started in the business in 2007 at UBS, following five years as a professional baseball player, and joined the Zizmer-Jones team in 2009.
Chicago, Alex. Brown Recruits
Kenneth Dow, CFP, CIMA, has joined Raymond James & Associate in Oakbrook, Illinois. Dow formerly worked for Morgan Stanley, where he managed over $145 million in client assets and had over $1 million in annual revenues. He cut his teeth at Smith Barney starting in 1997.
