Raymond James Won $863M In Three Days. The Teams Were Not Buying The Same Model.

Wealth Management

Aug 20

Raymond James recruited three advisor groups from RBC Capital Markets, Wells Fargo and Thrivent Financial over three consecutive days in August 2025, adding approximately $863 million in reported client assets. Toll Wealth Management brought roughly $347 million from RBC in Las Vegas, West Hoffman Wealth Management arrived from Wells Fargo with approximately $276 million in Virginia Beach and Pinnacle Wealth Management moved more than $240 million from Thrivent in Antigo, Wisconsin.

The asset total makes Raymond James look like the obvious protagonist. The more useful story is how differently the three practices entered the firm. Daniel and Tahirih “T” Toll left RBC and created a separately owned boutique practice through Raymond James Financial Services, the company’s independent advisor channel. Todd West and Jason Hoffman left Wells Fargo but remained inside an employee structure by joining Raymond James & Associates. Pinnacle also selected Raymond James Financial Services, but its rationale centered on independence, planning depth and resources for a multi-advisor practice that already included business-owner and exit-planning expertise.

That makes the recruiting run more instructive than another tally of assets changing firms. Raymond James was not forcing every incoming advisor into a single operating model. It was using the same national organization to solve different practice problems.

Toll wanted ownership.

West and Hoffman wanted a different large-firm home without becoming independent.

Pinnacle wanted more autonomy around a team-based planning business.

The pattern also held up after the announcements. Toll Wealth Management, West Hoffman Wealth Management and Pinnacle Wealth Management all maintain current Raymond James-affiliated websites in 2026. Raymond James now reports approximately 8,900 financial advisors and $1.92 trillion in client assets as of June 30, 2026, giving those local practices a significantly larger national organization behind them than when they joined.

The August recruiting burst therefore was not evidence that one affiliation model was winning. It was evidence that Raymond James’ recruiting advantage came partly from having several ways to say yes to an advisor.

TL;DR

Raymond James recruited approximately $863 million in three days: Toll Wealth Management brought $347 million, West Hoffman brought $276 million and Pinnacle Wealth Management brought more than $240 million.
Two teams chose independence: Toll and Pinnacle joined Raymond James Financial Services, the firm’s independent advisor channel.
One team stayed employee: West and Hoffman moved from Wells Fargo into Raymond James & Associates, the employee channel.
Toll’s move was about building a boutique: Daniel Toll said establishing his own investment practice had been a long-term goal and cited technology, investment resources and personalized service.
West Hoffman was a veteran-team recruit: Todd West brought more than 36 years of experience, while Jason Hoffman had more than 32 years.
Pinnacle had business-owner depth: Managing partners Travis Rose and Jeff Breit hold Certified Exit Planning Advisor designations and the team serves business owners and corporate executives alongside families and retirees.
The three teams remain on Raymond James today: Current Raymond James pages continue listing Toll Wealth Management, West Hoffman Wealth Management and Pinnacle Wealth Management.
RBC also lost another team in the same InvestmentNews roundup: Benjamin Goldberg and Brian Richmond moved approximately $156 million to Wells Fargo in Seal Beach, California.
Stephens recruited from JPMorgan: Josh McCord joined Stephens Private Wealth Management in Shreveport after working at JPMorgan Wealth Management.
Raymond James’ broader recruiting position later strengthened: NJ Financial News has since tracked the firm’s strongest recruiting outlook since the financial crisis, helped by its multiple affiliation options and a large Commonwealth pipeline.

The Three Moves Added Up To $863M, But The Practices Had Little Else In Common

Recruiting roundups encourage readers to add assets.

That is useful for measuring scale but often hides why advisors actually changed firms.

The three Raymond James teams came from different source firms, different markets and different career situations. Their client bases overlapped around families and business owners, but the structures of the practices were distinct.

Team

Source Firm

Reported Assets

Raymond James Channel

Most Important Practice Need

Toll Wealth Management

RBC Capital Markets

$347M

RJFS independent

Boutique ownership and personalized client experience

West Hoffman Wealth Management

Wells Fargo

$276M

RJA employee

Large-firm resources, technology and culture

Pinnacle Wealth Management

Thrivent

$240M+

RJFS independent

Autonomy, planning resources and team growth

This is what makes the recruiting streak strategically useful.

Raymond James did not have to convince West and Hoffman to become business owners to win them.

It did not have to convince the Tolls to remain employees.

It did not have to tell Pinnacle that a four-advisor Wisconsin planning team should operate the same way as a Virginia Beach employee practice.

The company could sell a common national platform while changing how much local ownership sat above it.

Toll Wealth Management Was The Most Explicit Entrepreneurship Move

Daniel and Tahirih Toll joined Raymond James Financial Services in Las Vegas with Senior Registered Client Associate Issac Preis and Registered Client Service Associate Jaden Tate. They had managed approximately $347 million at RBC and serve business owners, families, healthcare professionals, individuals and people experiencing sudden wealth.

Daniel had begun his career at Merrill Lynch in 2007 before joining RBC in 2017. T had nearly 20 years of experience across Bank of America, Merrill and RBC. The move was therefore not an inexperienced team experimenting with independence. It involved two established professionals leaving another substantial full-service wealth platform after years inside large institutions.

The Practice Name Was Part Of The Strategy

Daniel said it had long been a personal goal to establish his own investment practice. Raymond James allowed the team to operate as Toll Wealth Management, which is separately owned from Raymond James Financial Services while using Raymond James for securities, advisory infrastructure and the broader platform.

That ownership distinction is central.

At RBC, the advisors had access to a large institutional organization. RBC Wealth Management-U.S. currently reports approximately $769 billion in client assets and more than 2,200 financial advisors, along with access to City National Bank and RBC Capital Markets.

The Tolls were therefore not leaving because RBC lacked scale.

They were changing where the boundary sat between the national firm and their local business.

The new structure allowed them to retain institutional support while putting the Toll Wealth Management identity directly in front of clients.

Sudden Wealth Makes A Boutique Model More Interesting

The team’s client profile includes people experiencing sudden wealth.

That category can involve a business sale, inheritance, concentrated stock event, legal settlement or another major liquidity change. Clients in those situations may need considerably more than investment allocation.

They may require coordination around cash management, taxes, estate planning, risk, gifting and how quickly to deploy new wealth.

A boutique practice can position itself around those life events more specifically than a generic branch identity.

Raymond James does not automatically make the advice better. The independent structure gives the Tolls more control over how the practice is branded, staffed and organized around those client needs.

Their current Toll Wealth Management site continues to highlight business owners, families, individuals and healthcare professionals while identifying the practice as independent of Raymond James Financial Services.

That suggests the entrepreneurial part of the original recruiting pitch survived after transition.

West Hoffman Proves Raymond James Did Not Need Independence To Win

The Virginia Beach move points in a completely different direction.

Todd West and Jason Hoffman left Wells Fargo with approximately $276 million and formed West Hoffman Wealth Management of Raymond James inside Raymond James & Associates, the company’s employee advisor channel. Client Service Associate Candace Hizer moved with them.

West had more than 36 years of industry experience, including 19 years with Wells Fargo. Hoffman brought more than 32 years and had begun at Smith Barney in 1994. Their team serves business owners, families, individuals and people approaching or already in retirement.

That background makes the move particularly useful because it removes one of the easiest explanations for advisor departures.

They did not leave Wells Fargo to own an independent RIA.

They chose another employee wealth platform.

Culture Can Matter Even When The Legal Structure Barely Changes

Hoffman cited Raymond James’ platform, technology and culture when describing why the team moved.

Those factors can sound generic in a recruiting press release, but they become more important in an employee-to-employee move because ownership alone cannot explain the transition.

The advisors had to believe that another large organization would create a better environment for their practice.

That puts greater weight on less tangible variables:

home-office responsiveness,
local management,
technology usability,
investment access,
service culture,
advisor autonomy within the employee model,
and confidence that clients will experience the move as an improvement.

The decision shows why wealth recruiting cannot be reduced to independence.

Many veteran advisors still want an employer.

They may simply want a different employer.

West Hoffman’s Experience Made Client Disruption More Expensive

A practice with more than six decades of combined advisor experience has likely accumulated client relationships over multiple market cycles.

That creates an unusual transition risk.

The older and deeper the relationship, the more unnecessary disruption the client may question.

West and Hoffman therefore needed to explain why moving from one major national firm to another was worth new paperwork, account transfers and technology changes.

For Clients, “Better Platform” Needs A Concrete Meaning

Clients can reasonably ask:

Will the investment process change?
Will account numbers or online access change?
Will fees change?
Will the same service associate remain?
Are new lending or planning resources available?
Will the advisor have greater flexibility?
Are any investments unavailable at the new firm?

The team’s current Raymond James site continues to list West, Hoffman and Hizer together in Virginia Beach.

That continuity matters because one of the easiest ways to reduce transition anxiety is keeping the familiar team intact even while the institution behind it changes.

Pinnacle Brought A Team-Building Story To The Independent Channel

Pinnacle Wealth Management arrived from Thrivent with more than $240 million and seven professionals.

Managing partners Travis Rose, Jeff Breit and Scott Greening joined Financial Consultant Quincy Johnson, Director of Operations Anne Nowak, Director of Client Relations Ashley Hable and Branch Professional Julianna Maus.

The team serves families, individuals, pre-retirees, retirees, business owners and corporate executives. Rose had spent 13 years with Thrivent, Breit nine and Greening had 12 years of experience across UBS and Thrivent. Johnson represented a much earlier career stage after entering the industry in 2024.

This made Pinnacle more than a collection of established producers.

The practice already had multiple advisor generations, dedicated operations and client-relations staff and a younger professional who could develop inside the enterprise.

Exit-Planning Credentials Reveal The Business-Owner Opportunity

Rose and Breit both hold Certified Exit Planning Advisor designations. Greening is a CFP professional.

Those credentials give the team an identifiable business-owner planning capability.

An owner preparing to sell or transfer a company may need help coordinating:

personal and business wealth,
retirement timing,
liquidity,
investment concentration,
estate planning,
family succession,
charitable goals,
and post-sale portfolio design.

That work can deepen the economics of a client relationship well beyond ordinary retirement planning.

It can also create a powerful referral network among attorneys, accountants, bankers and transaction professionals.

Raymond James therefore gained a practice with a potentially valuable specialization, not simply $240 million in assets.

Pinnacle Was Moving From One Values-Oriented Platform To Another Kind Of Identity

Thrivent markets itself around values-based financial guidance rooted in faith and service, while also offering advisors planning technology and resources to grow practices. Its current advisor careers materials emphasize freedom to shape a practice, planning technology and practice-development support.

That context makes Pinnacle’s move more specific.

Rose said Raymond James offered the combination of independence, integrity and modern resources his team wanted.

The issue therefore was not that Thrivent lacked planning technology or practice support.

Pinnacle was choosing a different institutional identity and a different framework for building the local enterprise.

A Team Practice Needs Room For Different Careers

Pinnacle includes senior advisors, a newer financial consultant, operations leadership and client-relations personnel.

A practice like that needs a platform capable of supporting more than one producer’s book.

It needs an environment where younger professionals can develop, senior partners can eventually transition responsibility and employees can specialize around operations and client experience.

That can become an important recruiting advantage for independent channels.

The advisor is not only choosing where to place assets.

The advisor is choosing where to build an organization.

Pinnacle’s current Raymond James site continues listing its Antigo practice and describes the business as separately owned and operated.

Raymond James’ Real Product Was Optionality

The three recruiting wins become easier to understand when Raymond James itself is treated as a portfolio of affiliation choices rather than one advisor model.

Raymond James Financial Services supports independently owned practices.

Raymond James & Associates houses employee advisors.

Both sit inside Raymond James Financial and can access the broader institution’s wealth-management capabilities, though economics, ownership, supervision and local business responsibilities differ by channel.

This gave recruiters more than one answer to the same question.

What do you want your practice to look like next?

Optionality Lets Recruiters Start With The Advisor Instead Of The Channel

A rigid platform may have to persuade the advisor to accept its model.

Raymond James can first determine whether the practice wants:

business ownership,
local branding,
centralized employment,
less operating responsibility,
greater independence,
a multi-advisor enterprise,
or an established branch structure.

Then it can route the advisor toward the more appropriate channel.

NJ Financial News’ recent recruiting outlook analysis reached a similar conclusion from Raymond James’ later Commonwealth success: modern recruiting requires coordination across affiliation models, transition support, technology, practice valuation, succession and local service rather than a single national pitch.

The August trio shows that infrastructure working before the Commonwealth opportunity became the dominant Raymond James recruiting story.

The Independent Channel Won Two Teams, But That Is Not The Same As Saying Independence Won

Toll and Pinnacle represented $587 million of the $863 million three-team total.

Both selected RJFS.

It would be easy to interpret that as another victory for the independent channel.

West Hoffman prevents the conclusion from becoming too simple.

Different Advisors Define Control Differently

For Daniel Toll, control meant creating a boutique practice under his own firm name.

For Pinnacle, it meant combining independence with planning resources while building a multi-advisor organization.

For West and Hoffman, control did not require owning the operating entity.

They chose Raymond James’ employee channel and still emphasized technology, platform quality and culture.

The common denominator was not legal structure.

It was the belief that Raymond James gave each team enough control over the parts of the practice they cared about most.

That is a more durable recruiting message because it does not depend on every advisor wanting entrepreneurship.

Raymond James Was Recruiting Experienced Advisors, Not Just Assets

The Tolls brought decades of combined experience.

West and Hoffman brought more than 68 years combined.

Rose, Breit and Greening represented another established advisory core at Pinnacle.

Those careers matter because experienced advisors bring assets that do not appear in an AUM headline.

They bring client trust.

They bring referral relationships.

They bring judgment formed through previous market cycles.

They often bring staff who already know how to serve the practice.

Veteran Teams Reduce One Kind Of Growth Risk

A national platform can acquire clients through marketing.

Recruiting a mature advisor practice effectively acquires access to relationships that have already survived years of competition.

The receiving firm still has to retain those households through the transition.

It does not have to build every relationship from scratch.

That is one reason recruiting economics can remain attractive even when transition packages are expensive.

The platform is paying partly for time it cannot recreate quickly.

The Current Team Pages Give Raymond James A Useful Proof Point

Recruiting announcements are easy to make.

Retention after the announcement matters more.

As of August 2026, all three teams still have current Raymond James-affiliated web presences. Toll Wealth Management remains within RJFS. West Hoffman remains with Raymond James & Associates in Virginia Beach. Pinnacle remains an independently owned practice using RJFS.

That does not prove every client followed or that every original asset remains.

Public websites do not provide enough evidence for that conclusion.

They do confirm that the core team-platform relationships survived the first year.

Retention Converts Recruiting Expense Into Enterprise Value

The economic logic of recruiting depends on time.

A firm can spend heavily to recruit a $300 million team and destroy much of the value if the advisors leave again quickly.

A durable recruit can produce:

recurring advisory revenue,
additional organic assets,
referrals,
new local recruits,
succession opportunities,
and a reference for future prospects.

The longer the advisor remains and grows, the less the original move looks like an asset transfer and the more it looks like business development.

Raymond James’ Scale Has Grown Around These Practices

Raymond James reported approximately $1.64 trillion in client assets when the three teams joined in August 2025. Its current local Raymond James materials list approximately $1.92 trillion in client assets and 8,900 financial advisors as of June 30, 2026.

Those figures provide hindsight on the platform decision.

The local practices retained their identities or team structures while the organization supporting them continued expanding.

That combination is exactly what Raymond James has tried to sell to advisors: local relationship businesses backed by national scale.

Scale Can Help Recruiting And Still Hurt Service

The challenge is that more advisors also produce more operational demand.

Every successful recruit creates account transitions, technology onboarding, training and compliance work.

NJ Financial News’ Raymond James outlook has identified execution as the next risk after recruiting momentum because the firm has to absorb new practices without weakening the service culture used to win them.

Toll, West Hoffman and Pinnacle all cited some combination of platform quality, culture or resources.

Those claims become less persuasive to the next recruit if service deteriorates as headcount rises.

Recruiting success therefore creates its own operating test.

RBC Lost Teams To Two Different Competitors In The Same Roundup

Raymond James was not the only firm recruiting from RBC that week.

Wells Fargo Advisors added Benjamin Goldberg and Brian Richmond, along with Client Associate Kelsey Chicots, to its Seal Beach, California branch. InvestmentNews said the team brought nearly $156 million from RBC Wealth Management. Goldberg had 32 years of industry experience and Richmond 23.

Combined with the Toll move, the InvestmentNews roundup showed RBC losing roughly $503 million of reported advisor assets to two different firms.

That deserves context.

RBC Wealth Management-U.S. remains a substantial competitor with approximately $769 billion in total client assets and more than 2,200 financial advisors as of May 28, 2026.

The exits therefore should not be framed as evidence of a broken platform.

Different Destinations Suggest Advisor-Specific Motives

Toll chose independent ownership through Raymond James.

Goldberg and Richmond moved to Wells Fargo.

Those destinations do not share one obvious operating model.

That suggests the source-firm losses likely involved different advisor priorities rather than one universal rejection of RBC.

The same pattern appeared later. NJ Financial News has tracked additional Wells Fargo recruiting from RBC, UBS and other firms in its advisor recruiting analysis, showing how large wealth firms continue taking talent from one another even while each remains capable of winning elsewhere.

Recruiting is increasingly circular.

Large firms are usually both buyers and sellers of advisor talent at the same time.

Wells Fargo Lost West Hoffman And Won An RBC Team

Wells Fargo itself illustrates that circularity perfectly.

It lost West and Hoffman to Raymond James while adding Goldberg and Richmond from RBC in the same InvestmentNews report.

That makes one-sided platform narratives especially unreliable.

A firm can lose a $276 million practice and recruit a $156 million team days apart.

Neither event alone tells readers whether the overall advisor force is strengthening or weakening.

The Better Question Is Which Advisor Segments The Firm Is Winning

Later NJ Financial News coverage of Wells Fargo recruiting showed the company continuing to add advisors from RBC, UBS and Citizens across its Private Client Group and bank channel.

At the same time, Raymond James has continued recruiting former Wells Fargo teams into both employee and independent structures.

The firms are not fighting over one homogeneous advisor population.

They are competing team by team.

Pinnacle Shows Why Thrivent Talent Can Be Attractive To Broader Wealth Platforms

Thrivent’s advisor model places substantial emphasis on financial planning, values, relationships and community. Its careers materials also highlight technology including MoneyGuidePro, Salesforce, Wealthscape and Envestnet.

Advisors trained in that environment can bring strong planning habits into broader independent platforms.

Pinnacle also brought specialized business-owner expertise through its CEPA-designated managing partners.

That combination makes the Thrivent source particularly interesting.

Values-Based Planning Can Travel Without The Original Brand

Clients may initially have chosen Thrivent partly because of its faith- and values-oriented identity.

A team leaving has to preserve the relationship while explaining why its planning philosophy still works outside that institution.

Rose’s Raymond James announcement emphasized purpose, long-term goals and helping clients through real challenges.

That language sounds consistent with a planning identity the team could carry with it rather than a value proposition owned entirely by the source firm.

For Raymond James, that portability is valuable.

The receiving firm acquires advisors whose client relationships may be tied strongly to the people and planning approach rather than only the national brand.

Pinnacle’s Younger Advisor Gives The Move A Talent-Development Angle

Quincy Johnson began his career and joined Pinnacle in 2024, only shortly before the Raymond James transition.

That makes him strategically different from Rose, Breit and Greening.

The senior partners brought established client relationships.

Johnson represents future capacity.

Recruiting A Team Means Recruiting Its Internal Pipeline

A younger advisor can eventually:

absorb smaller client relationships,
support planning work,
develop a specialty,
inherit relationships from senior partners,
and become part of the succession structure.

Raymond James therefore did not simply recruit the assets the practice had in 2025.

It recruited a business with its own early-career development opportunity already inside it.

That matters as wealth firms compete over an aging advisor population.

The strongest teams increasingly arrive with more than one generation of talent.

Business Owners Connect Toll And Pinnacle In Different Ways

Both Toll and Pinnacle list business owners among their target clients.

The opportunity looks different inside each practice.

Toll’s boutique model can help position the advisors around entrepreneurs whose personal wealth is closely linked to operating businesses or sudden liquidity events.

Pinnacle’s CEPA credentials create a clearer exit-planning angle around owners preparing for succession or sale.

Business-Owner Wealth Rewards Platforms With Breadth

A business owner may eventually need:

retirement planning,
sale preparation,
lending,
estate coordination,
concentrated investment management,
insurance,
charitable planning,
and advice after a liquidity event.

Those needs can exceed what a small advisory practice wants to build internally.

The advisor therefore needs a national platform broad enough to supply specialists without taking over the client relationship.

That is where large-firm infrastructure can support independent branding rather than compete with it.

The Client Experience Is The One Thing All Three Moves Had To Protect

The practices chose different affiliation structures.

Their clients faced many of the same practical questions.

An account transition is still an account transition whether the advisor becomes independent or remains an employee.

Clients Need A Plain-English Transition Checklist

The key questions include:

Will the same advisor and service team remain?
Will my investment strategy change?
Will my fees change?
Will my accounts move to a different custodian?
Will online access or statements change?
Do I need to sign new advisory agreements?
Will every existing investment transfer?
What new services become available?
Who supervises my advisor now?
Why does the team believe the change will improve my experience?

NJ Financial News made the same point in its later recruiting analysis: the industry may obsess over recruiting economics, while clients primarily need to know what changes in their own financial relationship.

That should remain the communication priority regardless of channel.

The Three-Team Run Became An Early Preview Of A Much Larger Recruiting Year

The August 2025 hires occurred before Raymond James’ Commonwealth recruiting became one of the dominant advisor-move stories in the industry.

LPL closed its Commonwealth acquisition on Aug. 1, creating a separate pool of independent advisors reconsidering their future affiliation. Raymond James later became a leading destination for those departures. NJ Financial News has tracked 18 former Commonwealth teams representing close to $4.5 billion moving to Raymond James in the months surrounding the transaction.

Toll, West Hoffman and Pinnacle show that Raymond James’ recruiting engine was broader than that one catalyst.

Commonwealth Was An Opportunity. The Infrastructure Already Existed.

Before Commonwealth disruption accelerated the pipeline, Raymond James was already recruiting:

an RBC team into RJFS,
a Wells Fargo team into RJA,
a Thrivent team into RJFS,
and other teams from several competitors.

The Commonwealth transaction therefore did not create Raymond James’ recruiting capability.

It gave an existing capability a much larger market to attack.

That distinction matters because temporary disruption at a competitor only helps if the recruiting firm is already capable of onboarding teams.

Raymond James Now Has To Defend The Flexibility It Used To Win

The biggest risk for a multi-channel organization is internal standardization.

Large firms naturally want common technology, compliance controls and operating efficiencies.

Advisors often join because they want flexibility.

Those objectives can conflict.

A Multi-Door Strategy Fails If Every Door Leads To The Same Room

Toll should continue feeling like a separately owned boutique practice.

Pinnacle should retain the ability to build a team-driven independent business.

West Hoffman should receive enough employee-platform support that becoming an independent practice does not look necessary.

If Raymond James standardizes those experiences too aggressively, its channel optionality becomes less meaningful.

The company’s scale now makes that balance harder.

With approximately 8,900 advisors and $1.92 trillion in client assets as of June 30, 2026, even small policy decisions can affect thousands of practices.

The platform has to become larger without becoming identical everywhere.

Stephens’ JPMorgan Hire Shows A Smaller Firm Can Play A Different Recruiting Game

The original InvestmentNews roundup also included Stephens adding Josh McCord as vice president and financial consultant in Shreveport, Louisiana after seven years in financial services, most recently at JPMorgan.

The asset figure was not the headline in the same way as Raymond James’ three large teams.

The strategic value was local.

Stephens was adding an experienced advisor into its Private Wealth Management business in Louisiana.

Regional Firms Can Compete On Proximity Instead Of Channel Breadth

Raymond James can offer multiple affiliation models and national scale.

A firm such as Stephens can make a different argument around family ownership, local leadership, institutional capabilities and direct access to decision-makers.

Neither pitch works for every advisor.

McCord’s move is useful because it reminds readers that advisor recruiting is not limited to national broker-dealer giants exchanging billion-dollar teams.

Regional firms can still add talent one advisor at a time where geography, culture and local relationships matter.

The $863M Number Was The Headline. Practice Architecture Was The Strategy.

The three Raymond James announcements happened quickly enough to look like one recruiting surge.

They were actually three separate demonstrations of platform fit.

Toll Wealth Management wanted a boutique identity and business ownership after years inside Merrill and RBC.

West Hoffman wanted a different large-firm employee environment after decades in the industry.

Pinnacle wanted independence around a growing multi-advisor planning enterprise with business-owner expertise and a younger advisor already developing inside the team.

Those differences explain more about Raymond James’ recruiting strength than the $863 million total.

The platform could meet advisors at different points in the ownership spectrum without asking them to abandon the local practice identities and client relationships they had already built.

Bottom Line: Raymond James Did Not Win Three Teams With One Pitch

InvestmentNews reported a fast three-day Raymond James recruiting streak in August 2025: $347 million from RBC, $276 million from Wells Fargo and more than $240 million from Thrivent. Together, the moves brought approximately $863 million in client assets and three advisor groups into Las Vegas, Virginia Beach and Antigo.

The similarities stop quickly.

Daniel and Tahirih Toll were pursuing entrepreneurship. Daniel said building his own investment practice had been a longtime goal, and RJFS allowed the team to create Toll Wealth Management while retaining a large-firm investment, technology and compliance platform behind it.

Todd West and Jason Hoffman made almost the opposite structural decision. They moved from Wells Fargo into Raymond James & Associates and remained employee advisors. Their choice shows that Raymond James could win veteran talent on culture, technology and institutional fit without making independence the central selling point.

Pinnacle Wealth Management landed between those narratives. Its four-advisor team moved from Thrivent into RJFS, with Rose emphasizing independence, integrity and modern resources. The practice also brought two CEPA-designated managing partners, a CFP professional, business-owner relationships and an early-career financial consultant, giving Raymond James both current assets and future team-development potential.

The teams have remained affiliated into 2026, while Raymond James has expanded to approximately $1.92 trillion in client assets and 8,900 advisors.

The same InvestmentNews report showed how fluid the wider market remained. Wells Fargo lost West Hoffman to Raymond James while taking a $156 million team from RBC. RBC lost advisors to two different competitors. Stephens pulled an advisor from JPMorgan.

Nobody owned the recruiting market.

The more durable competitive advantage was the ability to give different practices a structure that fit what they wanted next.

Raymond James had three teams asking three different questions.

Its strength was having three credible answers.

Frequently Asked Questions About Raymond James’ RBC, Wells Fargo And Thrivent Recruits

Who Did Raymond James Recruit From RBC?
Raymond James Financial Services recruited Daniel Toll and Tahirih “T” Toll from RBC Capital Markets in Las Vegas. Their team, Toll Wealth Management, had managed approximately $347 million in client assets and also included Issac Preis and Jaden Tate. The Tolls serve business owners, families, healthcare professionals, individuals and sudden-wealth clients. Daniel said creating his own investment practice had been a long-term goal, making the move particularly significant as an ownership transition rather than simply a change between large national wealth firms.
Who Joined Raymond James From Wells Fargo?
Todd West and Jason Hoffman joined Raymond James & Associates from Wells Fargo with approximately $276 million in client assets and formed West Hoffman Wealth Management of Raymond James in Virginia Beach. Unlike the Toll and Pinnacle teams, West and Hoffman chose Raymond James’ employee advisor channel. West brought more than 36 years of experience and Hoffman more than 32, making the transaction a veteran employee-to-employee platform move rather than a breakaway into independence.
Which Thrivent Team Joined Raymond James?
Pinnacle Wealth Management in Antigo, Wisconsin joined Raymond James Financial Services after managing more than $240 million at Thrivent Financial. The advisor team included managing partners Travis Rose, Jeff Breit and Scott Greening plus Financial Consultant Quincy Johnson. Rose and Breit hold CEPA designations, while Greening is a CFP professional. The group serves families, retirees, business owners and corporate executives and selected Raymond James’ independent channel.
Are Toll, West Hoffman And Pinnacle Still With Raymond James?
Current Raymond James websites continue to show all three practices affiliated with the firm in 2026. Toll Wealth Management remains an independent practice through Raymond James Financial Services. West Hoffman Wealth Management remains part of Raymond James & Associates in Virginia Beach, while Pinnacle Wealth Management continues operating as a separately owned Raymond James Financial Services practice in Antigo. Public websites do not establish current client assets or prove that every original client remained, but they do confirm that the core advisor affiliations continue.
What Other Advisor Moves Were In The InvestmentNews Report?
InvestmentNews also reported that Wells Fargo recruited advisors Benjamin Goldberg and Brian Richmond from RBC Wealth Management with nearly $156 million in assets in Seal Beach, California. Stephens added Josh McCord in Shreveport, Louisiana after his most recent role at JPMorgan Wealth Management. The additional moves reinforce how fluid advisor recruiting had become because firms such as RBC and Wells Fargo were simultaneously losing and gaining experienced advisors rather than moving uniformly in one direction.