Raymond James & Associates, the employee retail unit of the St. Petersburg-based brokerage firm, has recruited six advisors managing $3.5 billion in institutional and retail assets to its Honolulu branch. That branch was recently established by Larry Goeas, who joined Raymond James from Stifel Nicolaus, a wealth advisory and investment bank firm based in St. Louis.

The move creates a major beachhead for Raymond James in Honolulu.

The group moving over is headed by Ronald Kikawa, who served as senior institutional consultant at UBS. Karen Yasukawa, who also worked on the institutional team, is also moving to Raymond James.

Four retail brokers affiliated with Kikawa's team are also leaving UBS for Raymond James' employee unit. They are Paul Yamashita, Gregg Matsuura, Susanne Millard and Wesley Yamamoto.

The Raymond James & Associates office that the six-person UBS group is moving to was one of UBS's larger groups on the island. It will operate as The Kikawa Group of Raymond James. 

“We have many institutional clients including foundations, endowments, and a significant number of Taft-Hartley Joint Trusteed plans, so being able to advise them and keep the managers they trusted was very important to us,” says Kikawa.