Raymond James Nears Record for Advisor Recruiting

Raymond James reported it is positioned to surpass its fiscal 2025 advisor recruiting record after onboarding advisors who generated $393 million in trailing 12‑month production and brought over $56 billion in client assets during the first nine months of the fiscal year.

The update came on the broker‑dealer’s fiscal third‑quarter earnings call covering April through June. Raymond James’ Private Client Group, the firm’s core wealth business, reached a record $1.86 trillion in assets under administration, a 9% increase from the prior quarter and an 18% rise from a year earlier. Firm‑wide assets under administration totaled $1.92 trillion. Fee‑based accounts in the Private Client Group reached $1.15 trillion, up 22% year over year. Domestic net new assets for the quarter were $21.7 billion, an annualized growth rate of 5.5%.

Recruiting continued to drive growth in the quarter. Advisors who joined Raymond James’ independent and employee channels during the period represented $156 million of trailing 12‑month production and nearly $23 billion of client assets at their previous firms. On the call, Paul Shoukry said the firm is on “a clear path to exceed the record results set in fiscal 2025.”

Raymond James cited external advisor movement following industry consolidation as one contributor to its recruiting momentum. The firm completed the acquisition of Clark Capital during the period, adding roughly $47 billion in combined assets under management and nondiscretionary assets, the company reported.

Compensation, commissions and benefits increased 17% year over year to $2.6 billion in the quarter as recruiting and payroll costs rose. The firm said it is committing about $1.1 billion a year to technology spending to support advisors and client services.

The company completed an enterprise rollout of a proprietary AI assistant called Raimond during the quarter. Shoukry described the tool as giving employees “a secure plain language way to access institutional knowledge, ask follow‑up questions and receive more actionable answers,” and said initial feedback from the pilot and full rollout has been encouraging. He also noted that client relationships remain a priority and that technology is being used to support those relationships rather than replace them.

Raymond James last reported an advisor headcount of 8,943 in October 2025 and no longer provides that figure each quarter. The firm said its results reflect a mix of organic inflows and targeted hiring as it seeks to grow fee‑based business and expand wealth management capabilities and digital tools.