Like many American businesses, Raymond James Financial is learning how to grow its businesses without adding a lot of people. That was evident on Wednesday, after the market closed, when the financial services firm held its quarterly earnings call.

Chair and CEO Paul Reilly, who announced last March that he would be stepping down next year and replaced by the firm's president and CFO, Paul Shoukry, who was also on the earnings call, started the call by praising the firm’s advisors. “[Our] advisors embody our client-first culture,” he said. He spoke about the “depth and breadth of our technology and platform … which provide advisors with the tools they need to flourish [and] advisors continue to serve their clients.”

He then launched into what he called “strong results” for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.

Overall, Raymond James, which is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla., reported net income of $491 million for the quarter, a year-over-year gain of 33%, on record net revenues of $3.22 billion, which represented a jump of 11% from the prior year. Earnings per diluted share were $2.31, or 35% higher than in the corresponding period a year ago.

These numbers were largely in line with average analyst estimates. The average forecast for EPS was $2.32, and for revenue the average estimate was $3.24 billion.

In the Private Client Group, though, the total number of advisors grew just 1% from the prior year to 8,782. Of those advisors, 4,970 were independent contractors in the Raymond James Financial Services RIA network, a decrease of 2% year-over-year. The head count of employee advisors under Raymond James and Associates, however, grew 4% during the quarter to 3,812.

Back in January, Reilly bemoaned the difficulties of growing the RIA network. “Probably the biggest change in the competitive landscape has been RIA roll-ups that pay prices [for advisory firms] that we can't quite figure out, and it's a bet on aggregating and being able to go to market at some point even though those higher multiples are much bigger than public multiples,” he said then.

In Wednesday’s call, however, there was little talk of this problem.

Reilly acknowledged the decrease in the advisor network. But rather than harp on it, or any difficulties with recruiting independent-contractor advisors, he quickly pivoted to stress that, during the most recent quarter, the Private Client Group saw assets under administration grow 15% year-over-year to $1,415.7 billion. Assets in fee-based accounts for the group increased 18% to $820.6 billion. Domestic net new assets for the group in the quarter were $16,517 billion, representing 5.2% growth on annualized basis. Some of these asset gains, he acknowledged, were due to “strong equity market.”

The group’s quarterly revenue from asset management and related administrative fees advanced 17% from the preceding year to $1,364 billion.

Like Reilly, Shoukry praised the advisors. “We truly have a fantastic group of financial advisors and associates,” he said, “who put their clients first each and every day.”