Two major longtime Raymond James Financial Services advisory teams left the firm’s brokerage after decades but retained its custodian when they joined forces under a new RIA.
Pearl Planning and Stephens Wealth Management Group, which have eight advisors and $794.5 million in assets under management between the two Michigan-based practices, left Raymond James this past fall for the new Flint-based RIA, Stephens Consulting, according to SEC records. Financial advisor Sheryl Stephens, a 45-year veteran of Raymond James, launched the firm, and planner Melissa Joy, who had been affiliated with Raymond James for her entire 18-year career, uses the RIA for her Dexter-based practice.
While the two firms had previously shared technology and compliance, their choice to stay with Raymond James’ custodian reflects how wealth managers are growing more adept at embracing the RIA movement rather than fighting it. In an example from last year, the Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network
Joy, whose practice reached $128 million in client assets by the end of the year, said that some advisors “really are getting huge benefit from their broker-dealer relationship” while others “just haven't noticed the difference or nuances” with using a fully independent RIA. At her practice and Stephens, what she dubbed its “big sister firm,” there was “some familiarity and also some loyalty” for Raymond James built up over decades, she said in an interview.
“The profession has changed, and the custodial relationship and broker-dealer relationships look different today than when I cut my teeth in the business in the first decades of the 2000s,” Joy said. “Some people flourish with the structure and the backbone of an independent broker-dealer and others may evolve to look and feel more like an RIA.”
The people she worked with at the Raymond James brokerage on a regular basis are probably what she misses most since formally affiliating with the new RIA on Oct. 1, Joy added. Representatives for Raymond James declined to comment.
Stephens, who officially joined the RIA on the same day after registering it with the SEC in July, didn’t respond to an email.
Advisors who choose to join Joy and Stephens in dropping their FINRA licenses and brokerage affiliations weigh the greater autonomy and payouts of having their own advisory firm against the burden of taking on new administrative tasks involved with running a business, according to Shauna Mace, the head of practice management for Independent Advisor Solutions by SEI. With the amount of tasks involved and the careful maneuvering to avoid a legal battle over clients, most transitions take six to nine months, Mace said.
“The risk of making that leap to independence is going to create a better environment or a better chance at a good outcome for their clients and themselves,” she said, describing the goal as advisors’ biggest motivation for making a move like that of Joy. “They hopefully should be thinking about that future business before they make that leap.”
Indeed, Joy said she had the next decade in mind at her firm when she left the brokerage. Since 2019, Pearl Planning has added five new team members, including advisors Melissa Fradenburg and Alexa Kane, planner and relationship manager Hannah Near and client service representative Maggie Segrave. A divorce financial planner joined the practice at the beginning of the year as well. In addition to Pearl’s main office in Dexter, Fradenburg operates her practice from a second location in Grosse Pointe Farms.
“The team has grown a lot, and it's a very talented team with a lot of great experience but also youth,” Joy said. “It fits right in with wanting to build that rockstar financial planning team.”
