ON THE MOVE-Raymond James lands $2.4 bln broker team from Morgan Stanley
By Elizabeth Dilts
NEW YORK, June 3 (Reuters) - Raymond James & Associates said Wednesday it landed six Morgan Stanley brokers who managed a combined $2.4 billion in assets, one of the most successful teams ever hired at the employee broker-dealer part of the fast-growing financial services firm Raymond James Financial Inc.
Don d'Adesky, W. Kristopher Lemke, Matthew Cicero, Jose Cabrera, Kevin Gourrier and Ryan Weber, who collectively operate as The Americas Group, will work out of two Raymond James' offices in Boca Raton and Coral Gables, Florida. They joined from Morgan Stanley's nearby offices on Friday.
Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Christine Jockle confirmed the brokers' departures. According to a statement, Morgan Stanley was no longer able to accommodate the brokers' business model.
"They serve a number of smaller central banks in Caribbean and Latin American countries, and, for regulatory reasons, we are shifting coverage of these clients to our institutional business and will no longer serve them in wealth management," according to the statement from Morgan Stanley.
D'Adesky, one of Barron's Top 100 American brokers in 2014 and head of The Americas Group in Boca Raton, said the group, which includes six service associates, chose Raymond James because they want to grow their combined assets under advisory by an additional $1 billion within the next five years.
That type of rapid growth requires stability, d'Adesky said. An industry veteran with nearly 30 years of experience, d'Adesky said he and his colleagues had all worked for firms that merged with other firms, and they found it comforting that many Raymond James brokers had worked there for over a decade.
"We wanted to find the firm where we thought everyone was comfortable, where there wasn't (going to be) another change soon," d'Adesky said.
The group, which works with high net worth and ultra high net worth clients, also aims to grow its middle-market business at Raymond James, d'Adesky said.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts; Editing by David Gregorio)
