February 27, 2024
Louis Diamond Quoted
By Nate DiCamillo
Raymond James is trying to boost revenue by refocusing its recruiting efforts on financial advisors who oversee large books of business. The process involves targeting fewer advisors but zeroing in on larger shops.
The St. Petersburg, Florida-based firm is pulling a page from the “playbook” used at UBS and Morgan Stanley since 2017, when the firms left the protocol for broker recruiting, which allowed advisors to take certain pieces of client information with them when they switched firms, said Louis Diamond, president of advisor recruiting firm Diamond Consultants, based in Morristown, New Jersey.
“They were de-emphasizing recruiting, and instead focused on retaining advisors and … growing AUM organically rather than through training,” Diamond said. As a result, firms such as Raymond James, LPL Financial, RBC Capital Markets and Rockefeller Capital Management have all pursued advisors with larger books, Diamond added.
Raymond James is still part of the broker recruiting protocol, but gathering more assets from a smaller pool of advisors is a strategy the firm adopted in the past year, wherein its assets under administration jumped by 18% while advisor head count remained almost flat.
