Financial advisors Earl Silver, Ralph Liberatore, James “Jim” Hack and Anastasios “Taso” Liosatos have joined the Raymond James & Associates (RJA) Inc., employee advisor channel, the company announced in a news release.

Now operating as the Silver Liberatore Group of Raymond James, the team was formerly with UBS Financial Services, where members managed more than $1.08 billion in client assets. The practice also includes relationship manager Katherine “Kate” Micek and Senior Client Service Associate Jill Bradley.

Silver, an industry veteran since 1970, teamed up with Liberatore during his 35 years at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. As the practice grew, Silver and Liberatore looked for new partners they felt were better able fulfill their business needs. 

After leaving Morgan Stanley to join Merrill Lynch, where Hack and Liosatos joined the practice, the team then switched to UBS before deciding they needed a new partner with the capabilities to scale their business that Raymond James had to offer them, they said in the release.

Silver said in the release that in performing their due diligence, he and his team were impressed with what Raymond James had to offer.

“With the firm’s variety of affiliation options, we were pleased to find the Advisor Select model, which provides us the right balance of employee status and the increased independence of controlling our own office environment,” he said. “We were impressed with the firm’s leading technology, including Advisor Mobile, and are looking forward to leveraging tools like the firm’s wealth management technology suite.”

The advisors will join RJA’s Deer Park, Ill., branch, which is managed by Chad Danforth, and is part of the Illinois Complex, managed by Brian Lampsa.

“I am thrilled that Earl, Ralph and their team chose to join Raymond James,” Danforth said in the news release. “Our firm’s Advisor Select model, which offers a great balance between our traditional branch and fully independent affiliation alternatives, ended up being the right fit for them, and we’re pleased to welcome them to our Deer Park branch.”

Headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla., Raymond James & Associates Inc. is a subsidiary of Raymond James Financial, an independent investment bank and financial services company founded in 1962.