A Merrill Lynch advisor team that generated about $1.6 million in annual revenue is moving to Raymond James, according to a statement from the regional wealth manager.

Advisors Jeffery Tomaszewski and Gary Rigby, who managed more than $280 million in client assets while at Merrill Lynch, will join the Ocala, Fla. office of Raymond James & Associates, the traditional employee broker-dealer of Raymond James Financial.

via Raymond James Recruits $1.6M Advisor Team From Merrill Lynch | On Wall Street.

Business mix evaluation. I simply cannot stress enough how this particular category has changed over the last 12 months. The “deep dive” that is occurring on client mix, product mix, compensable revenue etc has gone to a whole new level. This is really the portion of the process that has turned into a “private equity” like deal. An advisors book of business is scrubbed from head to toe looking for not only current revenue producing assets, but also possible future revenue producing assets. What level of asset based lending could be applied to each account? What is the mortgage lending opportunity? What are the insurance possibilities? Accounts are also evaluated based on there level of commitment to the advisor vs. the firm they are coming from. All of this is rolled up into an equation that becomes part of the deal negotiation.

ROI. The entire process has come down to this age-old business acronym. With firms investing millions of dollars on recruits, they have come to terms with applying relatively hard and fast models to the potential success of each team/advisor. For example, one wirehouse has moved its ROI standard from 12% to 14% over the last 18 months. They’ve also increased their scrutiny of client assets, CRD disclosures, staffing and future compensable revenue. The process has become both paperwork and time intensive. The firms simply shrug and claim “look…we are investing millions of dollars and buying a business. The due diligence and dynamic reviews are necessary to justify the multiples that we are paying to shareholders”. Sound familiar?

via Recruiting has Become a Private Equity Game | Careers content from WealthManagement.com.

23 TAKEAWAYSHere are 23 of their recommendations for how to do it right and command the maximum purchase price.1. You are transferring trust, not just a business. Bengen said he kept this idea foremost in his thoughts during the process.2. If you are an overworked sole practitioner, turn your practice into a business. No buyers want to purchase a job. Among other things, Nelson brought in a junior planner to lighten her load and get her practice humming. “If I’d done these things before, I might have just kept working because they made it more enjoyable to be there,” she said.3. Don’t assume someone in your office can succeed you. “An employee can be a great planner but not necessarily have what it takes to run a practice,” said Nelson, who had wanted to transfer internally but sold to an outside buyer.4. Don’t just hand off the company to a buyer. You risk losing all your clients and reducing the value of the sale, which likely will pay out over a number of years based on retained revenue.5. Give or sell clients who produce low revenues to a different planner. A number of Nelson’s oldest clients’ assets had dwindled to the point where they produced little income. She knew of a former planner she respected who was getting back into the business and could take them. This raised average revenue for Nelson’s remaining clients.

via Financial Advisors: Selling a Solo Practice | Financial Planning.

Morgan Stanley has lost two advisor teams that managed more than $400 million in assets.

Advisors Joe Wong and Rodger Friedman left the wirehouse earlier this month for Steward Partners Global Advisory in Washington. A second team, the Lev Sher Group, was lured away by Wells Fargo Advisors.

Wong, 33, and Friedman, 57, managed more than $170 in assets and generated about $1.5 million in annual revenue for Morgan.

“We wanted to have more an impact on the firm we were with,” said Friedman. “When you’re in an audience in of more than 16,000 advisors, or 50,000 employees, the people who make the biggest difference are in the C suite. I like the idea of having more of a voice and an impact on the direction of the firm.”

via Morgan Stanley Loses Two Advisors Teams With More than $400 Million AUM | On Wall Street.

In the recruiting wars for top advisors, banks have traditionally shied away from wirehouse firms, viewing the advisors there as out of reach.  But now banks are getting bolder as they fight to overcome their inferiority complex and begin to play to their strengths.In a major catch late last year, First Dakota National Bank, a community bank based in Yankton, S.D., made waves when it reeled in a top-producing father-and-son advisory team from UBS Financial Services. The team produced more than $1.6 million in annual fees and commissions and had $325 million in assets under management.The two were attracted to the bank for a variety of reasons, the biggest being the opportunity to grow their business through referrals and warm leads,  according to Rob Ness, program manager at First Dakota, which uses Raymond James as its third-party marketing firm.“They were intrigued by the chance to further expand their business even more,” he said. “It opened them up to a whole new level of clients they currently don’t have.”The team joined the bank’s newly formed high-net-worth unit called Loft Advisors, which gave them the opportunity to get in front of wealthier people, Ness explained.As competition for talent intensifies, more banks like First Dakota are increasingly looking to the wirehouses as possible places to recruit. “We’re hearing more stories about banks pursuing wirehouse individuals. Maybe we opened the door a little bit in Sioux Falls,” Ness said, referring to the bank’s largest market.

via Banks Look to Wirehouses to Recruit Advisors | Bank Investment Consultant.

Nicholas Schorsch’s RCS Capital Corp. is shaking up its management, announcing that Valerie Brown, the longtime head of Cetera Financial Group and its predecessor ING broker-dealers, has stepped down and is being replaced by Larry Roth, whom Mr. Schorsch plucked from Advisor Group last year to lead his wholesaling broker-dealer, Realty Capital Securities.

via Valerie Brown out at Cetera.

Morgan Stanley has lost a veteran advisor who managed more than $360 million in client assets to Raymond James & Associates.Stephen Besse moved to Raymond James’ Walnut Creek, Calif., office this month to work for the employee broker-dealer side of the business. At Morgan, the CFP generated $1.35 million in annual revenue.

via Raymond James Picks Up $1.35 Million Advisor | On Wall Street.

Stifel, Nicolaus & Company picked up two wirehouse teams that managed more than $1 billion in combined AUM, boosting the St. Louis-based firm’s presence in the Carolinas to 18 offices from 15.

In North Carolina, six former Wells Fargo advisors that managed $586 million in assets have opened Stifel’s Greensboro office. And with the addition of Bulldog Investment Consulting, a former UBS team that managed $542 million in assets, Stifel now has offices in Charleston and Columbia, S.C.

“Not only are we adding a high-quality group of financial advisors, we’re expanding our footprint to include two important markets in the state of South Carolina in Charleston and Columbia,” James Zemlyak, chief operating officer of Stifel, said in a statement.

via Stifel Recruits 2 Teams With Over $1B in Combined AUM | On Wall Street.