AIG Advisor Group’s four B-Ds—FSC Securities Corp., Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial and Woodbury Financial Services—had recruited $3.5 billion to $4 billion in assets for the year as of mid-May, says Kevin Beard, the firm’s executive vice president of acquisition strategy and recruiting. For all of 2014, the firm’s B-Ds attracted about $6 billion.

“This year should be a lot better,” Beard says. “We have an active pipeline from other independents and even wirehouses, and on the acquisition front, we’re seeing a lot of activity from firms looking for succession plans or wanting to [sell their] broker-dealers because of increased costs and regulation.”

Raymond James Financial Services had 3,422 advisors in the independent channel as of March 2015, and that was up by 134 advisors from a year earlier.
Last year, the firm set a record for recruited revenues and should set another milestone this year, says Scott Curtis, RJFS president. The firm does not disclose recruited assets or revenues.

Most of RJFS’s recruits come from employee channels, advisors who “are now at the point where they want to take more control [and] become independent business owners,” Curtis says. “It’s driven by ongoing frustrations at the wirehouses.”

Recruited revenue at Cambridge will be down slightly this year to around $50 million, says Webber, but that’s after growing 13% last year.
The firm is getting a lot of looks from recruits, but getting the right fit has been more challenging, she says.

“It does feel that fee-based advisors are moving less,” Webber says, “and our business is more highly geared toward fee-based.”

Commonwealth is on track to recruit $50 million in production this year, up slightly from last year when the firm brought in just under $47 million, Daniels says.

Strong markets and improved service at most of the major B-Ds has lengthened the sales cycle, he adds.

“That said, there remain enough instances of firms not taking care of advisors that [we’ve] continued to thrive in our recruiting efforts,” Daniels says.

“We see a lot of advisors who are just uncomfortable with what I call the ‘big boxes,’” large B-Ds that are very inflexible, says Rich Babjak, chief executive and founder of World Equity Group, a brokerage firm based in Arlington Heights, Ill., with 175 reps in 70 offices handling about $3.5 billion for clients.

The firm has had success picking up unsatisfied reps from wirehouses and insurance B-Ds. It added 14 new people in April, and at press time in May it was set to bring on another 20 or so in the next few months, Babjak says.

Unhappy advisors can also get a boutique experience within a large supervisory office like Cooper McManus, says Arthur Cooper, co-founder of the hybrid firm in Irvine, Calif., and one of the biggest offices of Securities America. Cooper McManus has 57 advisors in eight states.

“Last year was a record year, and this year we’ll have another record if everyone in the pipeline closes,” Cooper says. In 2014, the firm added eight advisors and $206 million in recruited assets.

Meanwhile, HD Vest is hoping to add more than 600 new advisors this year to its existing force of 4,500, up from the 455 additions landed last year.

Last year, HD Vest rolled out upgraded technology and planning tools, which along with a revamped web-based marketing effort are helping attract talent, says chief executive Roger Ochs.

Most of the firm’s recruits are tax professionals who are new to the wealth management industry, but on average they have 400 to 600 tax clients who could be converted into financial planning clients.

Ochs counts about 220,000 tax preparers who are not offering financial advice.

“The size of the market is still huge for us,” he says.