Raymond James and Ameriprise Financial both cited strong recruiting pipelines in 2025 during earnings reports despite a tight market for advisor talent.
In its first-quarter fiscal earnings call, outgoing Raymond James CEO Paul Reilly said the hiring results were “lumpy” in the current market, with the firm seeing “strong” recruiting momentum coming off a record effort in fiscal 2024.
“We came off a record year and had a lot of advisors join at year-end, and the pipeline is very, very healthy,” Reilly said on the call. “If you look up and down the industry, it’s been a little slower, but we expect … strong M&A still for a while as long as the advisors are moving and joining us, and we’re optimistic with the pipeline.”
The firm reported that for the past 12 months, it has added employees and independent advisors representing about $318 million in revenue and $51 billion in client assets. It added another $10 billion in assets when considering advisors recruited into its RIA and custody services division.
Reilly, who will step down as CEO in February and take a role as executive chair, lauded the firm’s national head of advisor recruiting, Jodi Perry, for the results. Perry was promoted to that role in January 2024 after previously heading up the Raymond James’ independent contractor division.
According to the earnings report, headcount efforts were dampened, in part, by a large independent practice recently leaving Raymond James and creating a loss of about $5 billion in AUA.
SafeSpring Wealth Partners, a $6.4 billion Nashville-based RIA announced Tuesday that it had left Raymond James to go with wealth platform provider Dynasty Financial Partners.
Raymond James declined to confirm this was the departing contractor referenced in the earnings.
The b/d reported net new domestic assets of $14 billion, down from $21.6 billion the year prior, in part due to the departure of that large branch. It did not disclose a full adviser count during earnings but had noted 8,787 advisors as of September 30 at the end of the fiscal fourth quarter.
Raymond James reported net income of $599 million for the quarter, or diluted earnings per share of $2.86, up 20% from a year ago, beating analyst expectations by 24 cents a share, according to SeekingAlpha.com. The firm reported revenue of $3.54 billion, up 17% from a year ago, beating expectations by $57.24 million.
Chief Financial Officer Paul Shoukry will replace Reilly as CEO in a transition first announced in March 2024.
Ameriprise Adds Advisors
Separately, in its fourth-quarter earnings, Ameriprise reported adding 91 advisors to bring its headcount to 10,427, compared to 71 advisors added in the previous quarter.
On the earning call, CEO and Chairman Jim Cracchiolo called the new advisors a “nice increase in what is a slower time of the year for recruiting,” adding that “we feel good about our pipeline.”
Total client assets in Ameriprise’s wealth management division grew 14% to a record-setting $1 trillion at year-end, driven partly by strong markets and client inflows. The division also saw revenues increase 18% to $2.8 billion.
Ameriprise reported adjusted operating earnings of $947 million for the quarter, or diluted earnings per share of $9.36, beating analyst expectations by 31 cents a share, according to Seeking Alpha. The firm reported revenue of $4.5 billion, missing expectations by $18.69 million.