Raymond James loses $545M, then raids Wells Fargo

The independent channel's talent market moved in perfect counter-rhythm last week: according to InvestmentNews, FiNet and Raymond James Financial Services added three teams across California and Washington, moving more than $700 million in combined client assets, while Raymond James gave up roughly $545 million in California and picked up $160 million in Washington from a 35-year Wells Fargo veteran.

The two California teams landed at TSG Wealth Management, an independent affiliate of Wells Fargo's FiNet channel: the Fresno-based Dunn Team, which brings more than $355 million in client assets under Lance Dunn, a certified financial planner and managing director, alongside his daughter Lexis Dunn, an Accredited Asset Management Specialist and vice president, and senior client associate Karen Ursua; and Old Oak Partners, led by managing directors Richard Wilson and Matt Holzwarth with client associate Cayden Hill, which adds approximately $190 million from Chico. InvestmentNews notes the two teams managed roughly $545 million at their previous firm, Raymond James.

Raymond James' answer came in Yakima, Washington, where David Lazorik joins RJFS as branch manager, operating as Lazorik Financial Management, after managing more than $160 million at Wells Fargo over a 35-year career. He specializes in serving business owners, foundations, endowments, nonprofits and retirees — the client base that independent channels have been courting hard this cycle. "Raymond James aligns with the values-based foundation that has always guided the way I do business," Lazorik said, a quote that could have been uttered by any of the hundreds of advisors who have crossed the independence line this year.

Wells Fargo's FiNet channel just absorbed two Raymond James teams, and Raymond James answered by pulling a veteran from Wells Fargo's employee channel — the round-robin in miniature, where a wirehouse's independent affiliate steals from a rival independent and the rival steals back from the wirehouse's employee side.

The employee-channel fight now requires recruiting on both sides, and platforms that recruit only one side will lose both. FiNet is running the visible version of that campaign, marking its 25th anniversary in May by hailing a strong start to 2026 and what it called one of its strongest recruiting runs since inception — a run that has come partly at Raymond James' expense, and Raymond James is rebuilding from the same pool of talent it lost.

The pattern is not new: disclosed summer departures from the wirehouse channel now top $5 billion, with Ameriprise and Janney picking up veteran teams, and Wells Fargo has also turned the breakaway into a recruiting channel, bringing $17 billion onto its platform this year while recruiting on both sides of the independence line. The Fresno and Chico teams are the flip side, leaving the independent channel for a wirehouse's independent affiliate — a move that used to be rare.

Fresno and Chico are inland California markets, not coastal wirehouse strongholds, and TSG, as a multi-affiliate office, offers advisors the scale of a large platform with the feel of a local RIA — a combination that has been a proven draw out of Raymond James before and is likely to continue as long as the comp differential holds.

The dollar math is not favorable for Raymond James — $545 million out against $160 million in — but the trade is not purely additive: a branch manager in Yakima gives RJFS a foothold in central Washington, and Lazorik's client mix of business owners, foundations and nonprofits is the kind of sticky book that anchors a new office. The real test is whether the firm can hold its existing teams while recruiting new ones.

The churn will continue as long as the price of a veteran team stays above the cost of building a platform. The open question is whether firms will recognize that poaching is not a strategy: a $355 million team can be moved once by a good comp grid, but it cannot be moved twice if the platform that receives it fails the independence promise. FiNet's TSG affiliation gives teams a wirehouse balance sheet with the appearance of independence; Raymond James gives Lazorik a branch manager title and the RJFS platform, and neither is a durable advantage.

The durable advantage is the advisor's screen — the firms that own the software and services around the advisor, the workflow AI, the tax integration, the client meeting tools, will be the ones that stop the round-robin. Until then, the $700 million that moved last week is simply the cost of doing business in a market where every platform recruits and gets recruited.