A $1.2B UBS Team Went Independent. The Bigger Story Is What Independence Now Means.

Wealth Management

Aug 14

Three advisor moves involving almost $1.8 billion in reported client assets landed in the same recruiting roundup, but combining them into one asset total hides what actually happened.

TheInvestmentNews report led with Dial Square Private Wealth, an Orange County, California, practice founded by Jim Chiate and Tony Guinane after leaving UBS with approximately $1.2 billion in client assets. The veteran advisors joined Sanctuary Wealth, chose Charles Schwab and Goldman Sachs as custodians and moved from an employee environment into a model built around owning an independent business.

Raymond James won two other practices at almost the same time, but neither followed the same path. Jeremy Lobo, Chris Pascale and Michael “Mike” Mendillo left Commonwealth Financial Network with more than $300 million to operate Lobo & Pascale Wealth Management through Raymond James Financial Services, while Tim Bembry and Edgar Acosta left Wells Fargo with approximately $280 million to establish Living Wells Financial Group in the same independent advisor channel.

Calling all three moves “independence” is technically useful and strategically incomplete. Dial Square crossed from a wirehouse into a business-owner model with its own firm identity and a multi-custodial architecture, while the Raymond James practices chose a mature independent broker-dealer framework that lets advisors operate separate businesses while relying on Raymond James for brokerage, advisory infrastructure, technology and a broad wealth platform.

That distinction is the real story.

Advisors are no longer choosing between only two poles: stay at a large employee firm or build everything alone. The market now offers a spectrum ranging from employee channels to independent broker-dealers, hybrid RIAs, custodial platforms, supported breakaway firms and “partnered independence” models designed to give advisors more ownership without requiring them to recreate every operational function themselves. Sanctuary and Raymond James are both benefiting from that shift, but they are selling different answers to the same question.

How much of the business does the advisor want to own, and how much infrastructure does the advisor want someone else to provide?

TL;DR

Sanctuary landed the largest move: Dial Square Private Wealth left UBS with approximately $1.2 billion in client assets and launched through Sanctuary Wealth.
The move changed more than affiliation: Jim Chiate and Tony Guinane went from wirehouse employees to owners of an independent practice.
Custody became part of the strategy: Dial Square selected Charles Schwab and Goldman Sachs, giving the new business access to more than one institutional custody relationship.
Sanctuary was already on a recruiting run: At the time, the firm said it had added 16 partner firms representing more than $10 billion in client assets over the prior 12 months.
Raymond James added a longtime Commonwealth practice: Lobo & Pascale Wealth Management joined RJFS with more than $300 million after over two decades at Commonwealth.
Technology influenced that decision: Jeremy Lobo specifically pointed to Raymond James’ investments in advisor technology and artificial intelligence.
Raymond James also pulled veterans from Wells Fargo: Tim Bembry and Edgar Acosta launched Living Wells Financial Group with approximately $280 million in client assets.
The Alabama move had a different motivation: Bembry emphasized independence, freedom and the ability to deliver practical client advice at a later stage of his career.
Commonwealth disruption created another recruiting opening: Raymond James subsequently became one of the largest destinations for advisors leaving Commonwealth after its acquisition by LPL.
The broader lesson is about operating models: Advisors are increasingly comparing ownership, support, custody, technology, succession, compliance and enterprise value rather than simply choosing the largest payout.

Three Moves Reveal Three Different Versions Of Advisor Independence

The easiest way to read the InvestmentNews roundup is to identify the winners and losers.

Sanctuary gained $1.2 billion from UBS. Raymond James gained more than $300 million from Commonwealth and another $280 million from Wells Fargo. UBS, Commonwealth and Wells Fargo lost experienced advisors.

That scoreboard is accurate, but it misses the strategic differences underneath the moves.

Each team was solving a different business problem.

Practice

Prior Platform

New Model

Reported Client Assets

Core Strategic Change

Dial Square Private Wealth

UBS

Sanctuary partnered independence

$1.2B

Employee advisors became independent business owners

Lobo & Pascale Wealth Management

Commonwealth

Raymond James Financial Services

$300M+

Independent practice changed national platform after 24 years

Living Wells Financial Group

Wells Fargo

Raymond James Financial Services

$280M

Veteran wirehouse advisors moved into an independent channel

Dial Square represents a classic high-end wirehouse breakaway, but with considerably more institutional infrastructure available than many early independent RIAs had. Lobo & Pascale represents platform migration within independence, while Living Wells represents experienced employee advisors deciding that a later-career move into independence can still make strategic sense.

Those are very different transitions.

The common theme is not that every advisor wants maximum independence. It is that experienced advisors increasingly have enough options to choose a specific degree of ownership, operational responsibility and institutional support.

Dial Square Turned A $1.2 Billion Book Into An Owned Enterprise

The largest move is also the one with the biggest economic change for the advisors themselves.

Chiate and Guinane had worked together since 2003, first at Merrill Lynch and later at UBS, where they had been since 2013. When they launched Dial Square Private Wealth, they did not simply take the same practice to another employee brokerage firm. They moved into Sanctuary’s Partner Firm structure and became owners of an independent wealth-management business.

That distinction matters because an advisor’s compensation and an advisor’s enterprise value are not the same thing.

A successful employee advisor can earn substantial annual compensation. A business owner can potentially create an asset with value beyond current-year production, provided the practice has durable revenue, transferable client relationships, operational infrastructure and a credible succession path.

The Economics Shift From Production To Enterprise Value

A wirehouse advisor generally participates economically through compensation arrangements established by the employer. The advisor may receive salary, production-based compensation, bonuses, deferred awards or recruiting incentives, but the firm itself remains the enterprise.

Independence changes that calculation.

The advisor can potentially own the local brand, business entity, staff structure and economics remaining after platform and operating expenses. The practice can also become an asset that may eventually support internal succession, a minority-capital transaction, a merger or a sale.

Sanctuary explicitly markets business ownership and enterprise value as part of its independent proposition. Its materials emphasize control over the practice, strategic capital for acquisitions and succession and the ability to build business value rather than operate only as an employee producer.

For a $1.2 billion practice, that distinction can become meaningful because the underlying business is already large enough to support institutional-level infrastructure.

Dial Square was not starting from zero.

It was converting an established practice into a company.

Ownership Also Creates New Responsibilities

The attraction of ownership comes with an important counterweight.

An employee advisor can focus primarily on clients, prospecting and portfolio work while a large institution handles many functions behind the scenes. An independent firm has more control, but someone still has to manage payroll, benefits, vendors, cybersecurity, compliance, real estate, marketing, insurance, accounting, technology and human resources.

That is where firms such as Sanctuary have changed the breakaway equation.

Sanctuary’s breakaway platform says it supports advisors with business setup, practice management, compliance, technology, brand development, back-office functions and transition planning. The model is designed to make the advisor a business owner without requiring the advisor to independently source every component of the business.

This middle ground is increasingly important.

The modern breakaway pitch is no longer, “Leave the wirehouse and do everything yourself.”

It is, “Own more of the business while outsourcing the infrastructure you do not want to build.”

Schwab And Goldman Sachs Make Custody Part Of Dial Square’s Client Proposition

Dial Square also made an architectural choice that differentiates the practice from many broker-dealer moves.

The founders selected Charles Schwab and Goldman Sachs as custodians. Sanctuary itself operates a hybrid model that includes an RIA and broker-dealer and currently emphasizes open architecture and connections to several custodians, including Schwab, Fidelity and Pershing.

For a sophisticated breakaway team, custody is not merely an administrative detail.

It shapes how client accounts are held, which services can be accessed, how technology connects to the practice and how the advisor explains independence to wealthy households accustomed to institutional brands.

Multi-Custody Can Increase Choice Without Making The Advisor A Custodian

A common misunderstanding around independent advice is that leaving a wirehouse means clients hand their assets directly to a small advisory firm.

That is not how an institutional custody structure normally works.

The independent advisor manages or advises on the relationship while a qualified custodian maintains the client account and performs functions associated with safeguarding assets. In Dial Square’s case, the announced relationships with Schwab and Goldman Sachs gave the new firm nationally recognized institutional names behind the custody layer while Dial Square built its own advisory identity.

For an ultra-high-net-worth client, that can make the breakaway conversation easier.

The advisor can explain that the relationship is becoming independent without suggesting the client has to choose between entrepreneurial advice and institutional infrastructure.

More Choice Creates More Operational Decisions

A multi-custodial structure also creates complexity.

An advisor has to determine which relationships belong on which platform, how account data flows into planning and reporting systems, whether investment solutions are equally portable and how the client experience remains consistent when accounts sit across different providers.

Sanctuary’s own breakaway materials acknowledge that portability requires detailed diligence around brokerage assets, direct holdings, lending accounts, mutual funds, alternatives, third-party managers and custodial relationships.

That is why a sophisticated breakaway is as much an operations project as a recruiting win.

The headline says $1.2 billion moved.

The real work is determining how hundreds or potentially thousands of individual account relationships move cleanly without damaging the client experience that made the practice valuable in the first place.

Ultra-High-Net-Worth Independence Requires More Than A New Logo

Dial Square’s size raises another important issue.

A $1.2 billion practice serving sophisticated clients cannot compete on independence rhetoric alone. The advisors may gain ownership and flexibility, but wealthy clients will still expect lending, alternatives, estate coordination, sophisticated investment access, reporting and responsive service.

Sanctuary described Dial Square as an ultra-high-net-worth breakaway and argued that its platform could give the team broader solutions and support than the advisors felt they could access inside their prior employee model.

That is a high bar.

Large wirehouses remain formidable precisely because they can combine advisor relationships with extensive institutional resources.

The Breakaway Has To Rebuild The Institutional Experience

A high-end independent firm may need capabilities involving:

Private markets: Access to alternatives, private credit or other nontraditional investments that sophisticated households may already use
Lending: Securities-backed lending, mortgages or business-owner credit needs that intersect with the investment relationship
Estate coordination: Support for attorneys, trustees and other professionals involved with multigenerational wealth
Tax-aware investing: Tools and expertise that help advisors coordinate investment decisions with complex tax circumstances
Business-owner planning: Advice around liquidity events, succession, concentrated ownership and pre-sale planning
Cash management: An institutional experience for households accustomed to integrated banking and brokerage services
Research: Investment and manager due diligence sophisticated enough for larger portfolios
Family-office coordination: The ability to organize multiple advisors, entities and generations around a single family relationship

The breakaway succeeds when the client feels that advisor ownership expanded the available choices without lowering the institutional quality of the experience.

That is much harder than simply opening an RIA.

It is one reason supported independence models have gained traction with large wirehouse teams.

Sanctuary’s Recruiting Momentum Shows The $1.2 Billion Move Was Not An Isolated Event

Dial Square arrived during a strong recruiting period for Sanctuary.

InvestmentNews reported that the firm had welcomed 16 partner firms representing more than $10 billion in client assets during the preceding 12 months. Sanctuary said at the time that its network included more than 125 partner firms across 32 states and more than $55 billion in assets on or transitioning to its platform.

The scale of that flow matters because Sanctuary’s model depends on being more than a transition consultant for individual breakaways.

It has to function as durable infrastructure after the advisors arrive.

Recruiting Creates A Capacity Test

Every billion-dollar breakaway adds operational demands.

The home office may need to support transition work, custodial relationships, compliance, technology, investment solutions, marketing, business consulting, human resources and continued practice expansion. Sanctuary’s current platform emphasizes these functions alongside strategic capital, alternative investments, insurance, lending and practice-management support.

That creates a familiar challenge for fast-growing platforms.

The same growth that validates the model can strain the service model.

A firm built around “partnered independence” has to remain sufficiently personalized that advisors believe the partnership is real even as the network becomes much larger.

Sanctuary’s continued 2026 recruiting suggests the breakaway proposition has remained active beyond Dial Square. Its current materials list additional partner-firm launches through 2026, including practices coming from major employee platforms, while the company continues to market the combination of ownership, technology, multiple custodians and centralized support.

That does not prove every breakaway succeeds equally.

It does show the wirehouse-to-independent pipeline did not disappear after the 2025 recruiting surge.

Raymond James Won Advisors Who Wanted Independence Without Building A New Platform

The two Raymond James moves look different because Raymond James Financial Services is a mature independent broker-dealer channel.

Lobo & Pascale Wealth Management and Living Wells Financial Group operate as separately owned practices, but their securities business runs through RJFS and their advisory services through Raymond James Financial Services Advisors. Raymond James supplies a broad infrastructure around those firms rather than asking them to create a stand-alone RIA operating system.

For many advisors, that level of independence is enough.

They can maintain a local practice identity and business-owner mindset while relying on one large firm for technology, investment access, advisory infrastructure, compliance and operational support.

Raymond James Sells Choice Inside A Large Institution

Raymond James currently markets a wide range of affiliation options through its AdvisorChoice structure, including employee, independent advisor, independent RIA and custody arrangements. Its advisor-opportunity materials also emphasize technology, transition management, private wealth resources, practice management, capital and succession support.

That makes Raymond James a useful example of how large financial institutions have responded to advisor demand for autonomy.

The firm does not need every recruit to want the same legal or economic structure.

It needs to keep the advisor somewhere within its broader ecosystem.

For an advisor who wants more business control but does not want to assemble a multi-custodian independent RIA, RJFS provides one answer.

For another advisor who wants an employee model, Raymond James has another.

The breadth itself becomes a recruiting tool.

Lobo & Pascale’s Commonwealth Exit Was A Platform Decision After 24 Years

The Connecticut move deserves separate treatment because the team had spent an unusually long period with Commonwealth Financial Network.

Lobo co-founded the practice with Pascale in 2001 and remained affiliated with Commonwealth for more than 24 years. When the practice moved to Raymond James, it brought more than $300 million in client assets and a planning model involving retirement, estate and business planning alongside tax and risk-management coordination.

A 24-year affiliation is not the profile of an advisor constantly switching firms for a better recruiting check.

Something material has to change before that kind of practice seriously reopens the platform decision.

Commonwealth’s Ownership Change Broke The Inertia

The obvious catalyst was LPL Financial’s acquisition of Commonwealth.

Once Commonwealth’s ownership and long-term platform direction changed, advisors who might otherwise have remained indefinitely had a reason to compare alternatives. Raymond James could approach those practices without having to manufacture dissatisfaction because the Commonwealth environment was already entering a period of change.

NJ Financial News has tracked that dynamic through theCommonwealth recruiting run, which later showed Raymond James recruiting multiple former Commonwealth teams representing billions of dollars in client assets.

The significance is broader than one broker-dealer acquisition.

Advisor retention around M&A is partly a question of inertia. Advisors may tolerate imperfections at a familiar platform because moving clients is difficult. An acquisition weakens that inertia by forcing advisors to consider a future they did not personally choose.

At that point, staying becomes a decision.

Leaving becomes a decision.

And competitors get an unusually attentive audience.

Technology Was Part Of The Raymond James Pitch

Lobo specifically cited Raymond James’ investment in sophisticated technology and artificial intelligence, saying those tools could save advisors time and increase their impact on clients. Pascale also pointed to technology and high-net-worth expertise as reasons the new platform could support a more sophisticated client experience.

Those comments matter because technology has become one of the most overused words in advisor recruiting.

Every major platform says it has good technology.

The more important question is what the technology does to the advisor’s day.

A useful platform should reduce manual work, make client information easier to access, simplify account servicing, improve planning workflows and help staff spend less time navigating disconnected systems.

If AI becomes part of that proposition, advisors will judge it the same way.

The winning tool will not be the one with the most impressive demo.

It will be the one that removes enough work to give the advisor more time with clients.

Living Wells Shows Why Late-Career Independence Is Still Attractive

The Alabama move had a different catalyst.

Tim Bembry and Edgar Acosta left Wells Fargo with approximately $280 million and launched Living Wells Financial Group in Hoover through RJFS. Bembry had spent decades at Wells Fargo, while Acosta had spent 17 years there.

Bembry’s explanation was especially revealing because he framed the decision around his stage of career.

He said independence and freedom mattered because he wanted to give clients practical advice in a way that aligned with his priorities. Raymond James also said the practice focuses on business owners, retirees and healthcare professionals, which means the team serves several groups where planning can extend well beyond portfolio selection.

Independence Is Not Only A Young Advisor’s Growth Bet

There is a tendency to frame independence as a strategy for ambitious midcareer advisors who want decades to build enterprise value.

That is too narrow.

A veteran advisor can have several reasons to make the move later.

The advisor may want greater control over client service, a more personalized practice brand, different technology, a succession path for younger colleagues or more authority over how the business operates during the final phase of a career.

The economics can also matter because ownership creates more options around how the practice eventually transitions.

A mature advisor is not only asking, “Where do I want to work for the next five years?”

The advisor may also be asking, “What exactly happens to this business when I stop working?”

That turns succession into part of recruiting.

A platform that can help an advisor transfer ownership to a partner, family member, internal successor or outside buyer may be offering something more durable than a transition bonus.

Commonwealth And Wells Fargo Created Different Recruiting Openings For Raymond James

Putting the two RJFS wins next to each other shows why broad labels such as “advisor recruiting” can obscure the actual sales process.

Commonwealth advisors were facing an ownership transition because LPL had acquired their longtime platform.

The Wells Fargo advisors were leaving an employee environment for independent ownership.

Those starting points create different conversations.

The Commonwealth Pitch

For a longtime Commonwealth practice, Raymond James could emphasize continuity within independence.

The advisor already understood what it meant to own a local business and operate through an independent broker-dealer. The decision was primarily about which national platform should sit behind that business.

The evaluation could focus on:

culture,
technology,
service,
high-net-worth resources,
transition support,
economics,
succession,
investment access,
and whether Raymond James felt closer to the model the team wanted after Commonwealth changed ownership.

The Wells Fargo Pitch

For a Wells Fargo team, the conversation could be more fundamental.

The advisor was comparing an employee model with independent ownership.

That brings additional questions:

Who owns the local practice?
Who hires the staff?
Who controls branding?
How does compensation change?
What business expenses shift to the advisor?
Does the advisor gain meaningful equity value?
How much operational responsibility comes with independence?
Which services remain centralized?
How does client experience change?

Both practices chose RJFS.

They did not arrive there for exactly the same reason.

Raymond James Turned Commonwealth Disruption Into A Repeatable Recruiting Lane

Lobo & Pascale was not an isolated Commonwealth departure.

Raymond James went on to recruit numerous Commonwealth practices through its independent channel. NJ Financial News later documented a$4.5 billion recruiting run, while another analysis of the firm’srecruiting outlook identified Commonwealth disruption as one of the clearest catalysts behind Raymond James’ stronger pipeline.

That later evidence changes how the August 2025 move should be interpreted.

Lobo & Pascale was not simply one team that happened to leave after an acquisition.

It was an early example of a much larger competitive pattern.

Competitors Do Not Need An Acquisition To Benefit From One

LPL paid for Commonwealth.

Raymond James could still capture part of the strategic value created by the transaction if enough Commonwealth advisors decided to leave.

That is one of the unusual features of wealth-management M&A.

The buyer acquires the company, but the people producing much of the revenue often have a meaningful degree of mobility.

The acquisition therefore creates value for the buyer and a prospecting list for competitors at the same time.

The better the target firm’s advisors are, the more aggressively those competitors will recruit.

This creates a second-order acquisition cost that is difficult to capture in the headline purchase price.

The buyer is not only funding the transaction.

It may also have to fund retention packages, transition support, technology investment and cultural preservation while competitors approach the exact advisors it most wants to keep.

Wirehouses Face A Different Threat: Advisors Are Learning To Price Their Own Businesses

UBS and Wells Fargo face a different form of pressure from the moves in the roundup.

Neither lost teams because of an announced acquisition.

They lost experienced advisors who decided a different operating model offered a better fit.

That distinction matters because it suggests the movement cannot be explained only by temporary disruption.

Enterprise Value Changes The Recruiting Conversation

A veteran wirehouse advisor may have spent decades thinking primarily about production, compensation and client relationships.

Independent platforms increasingly encourage the same advisor to think about enterprise value.

The questions become:

What is my practice worth as a company?
Can I sell equity?
Can I bring in a partner?
Can I acquire another practice?
Can my children or junior advisors eventually own the business?
Who controls the brand?
Who owns the economics if revenue grows?
What happens to the practice when I retire?
Can outside capital accelerate growth?

These questions can be particularly powerful for large teams.

A $1.2 billion advisor practice is already a significant commercial enterprise in everything except formal ownership if it remains entirely inside an employee model.

Sanctuary’s recruiting message attacks that gap directly by telling successful advisors that they have built something valuable and should consider owning more of it.

Wirehouses still have compelling counterarguments.

They offer integrated infrastructure, institutional lending, brand recognition, sophisticated products, extensive research, compliance support and the simplicity of not having to run a separate company.

The battle is therefore not “independence good, wirehouse bad.”

It is a question of whether the advisor values ownership enough to accept the responsibilities that accompany it.

Client Loyalty Becomes The Real Asset During A Breakaway

The advisor may decide where to move.

The client determines how much of the book actually arrives.

That makes client communication the central operating risk in all three moves.

Dial Square had to explain why leaving UBS and moving into an independent structure benefited clients. Lobo & Pascale had to explain why leaving a platform the team had used for more than two decades was worth the transition. Living Wells had to explain how moving away from Wells Fargo would affect accounts, service and the broader client experience.

The Three Client Conversations Are Not The Same

Practice

Client Transition Question

Primary Reassurance Needed

Dial Square

What does an independent firm mean for custody, products and institutional capabilities?

Independence does not mean giving up sophisticated infrastructure

Lobo & Pascale

Why leave Commonwealth after 24 years?

The advisor relationship and planning philosophy remain central despite a platform change

Living Wells

Why move from a major wirehouse into an independent practice?

Greater advisor autonomy can coexist with the resources of Raymond James

These conversations determine asset portability.

A client who trusts the advisor may still hesitate if the new arrangement feels unfamiliar, if certain investments cannot transfer cleanly or if the paperwork becomes burdensome.

That is why breakaway and transition teams spend so much time on asset mapping before launch.

Clients Should Understand What Actually Changes

The most useful questions are practical.

Clients should ask whether their account custodian changes, whether account numbers or online access change, whether the same securities can transfer, whether fees will differ and whether the advisor’s investment process will change.

They should also understand which legal entities provide brokerage or advisory services after the transition.

That last point is particularly important because a locally branded independent practice may be separate from the broker-dealer or registered investment adviser supporting parts of the relationship.

The local practice name is what the client sees.

The disclosure documents explain the legal structure underneath it.

Multi-Custodial Independence And Broker-Dealer Independence Create Different Compliance Work

Independence does not remove compliance.

It changes where the responsibilities sit.

Sanctuary operates its own registered investment adviser and broker-dealer while also supporting outside custodial relationships. Raymond James Financial Services operates as a broker-dealer supporting independent financial advisors, with investment advisory services provided through an affiliated RIA.

Those structures create different operational experiences for the advisor.

Dial Square Has More Architectural Choice

A practice using multiple custodians can potentially select different solutions for different client needs.

That flexibility can be valuable for large sophisticated households.

It also means the advisory business needs disciplined procedures around account placement, trading, data aggregation, client reporting, cybersecurity, supervision and documentation.

The advisor cannot simply say, “We are independent, so we have more choice.”

The firm needs a defensible process for how that choice is used.

RJFS Centralizes More Of The Framework

A Raymond James independent practice has local ownership but works inside a more standardized broker-dealer and advisory ecosystem.

That can reduce the number of infrastructure decisions the individual advisor has to make.

The trade-off is that the advisor works within Raymond James’ approved systems, policies, product structures and supervisory environment.

For some practices, that is a limitation.

For others, it is the entire reason to choose the model.

Independence is valuable only if the advisor actually wants the responsibilities being transferred.

Support Staff Are Often The Difference Between A Successful Move And An Advisor Meltdown

The InvestmentNews roundup names several non-advisor team members, and those details deserve more attention than recruiting stories usually give them.

Dial Square launched with Owen Galasso as vice president and registered operations manager and Nazgol Nekoomaram as vice president and wealth associate. Lobo & Pascale moved with director of business operations Jordan True and client relationship specialist Laura Sicignano, while Bembry and Acosta were joined by office manager Haley Edwards.

Those employees are not incidental.

During a transition, operations and service professionals can become the people holding the practice together.

Advisors Sell The Move. Operations Teams Make It Work.

A client may agree to follow the advisor, but someone still has to:

prepare paperwork,
track transfers,
answer portal questions,
resolve rejected forms,
coordinate account openings,
update client records,
verify beneficiary information,
schedule meetings,
handle incoming calls,
communicate deadlines,
coordinate vendors,
and escalate problems to the new platform.

At a billion-dollar practice, the volume can become enormous.

That is why advisor recruiting should increasingly be understood as team recruiting, not producer recruiting.

The advisor may be the relationship owner.

The operating team preserves the relationship during the most fragile part of the move.

The Real Platform Competition Is Over Advisor Time

Technology, custody, compliance, lending, alternatives and practice management can look like separate platform features.

They all compete around one scarce resource: advisor time.

A high-producing advisor can spend an hour preparing for a complex family meeting or an hour fixing an operational problem.

The platforms winning recruiting battles are increasingly promising to move more of the second category away from the advisor.

Sanctuary And Raymond James Solve The Time Problem Differently

Sanctuary’s model emphasizes support around an independently owned business. It offers practice-management resources covering areas such as compliance, human resources, accounting and back-office support while letting the partner firm build its own brand and choose from multiple platform components.

Raymond James solves the problem through a more integrated national infrastructure. The firm currently markets technology, transition management, practice management, private wealth resources, administrative support and succession capital as components of its advisor platform.

The distinction is not merely service quality.

It is organizational design.

Sanctuary says, in effect, own the company and let us help operate the infrastructure around it.

RJFS says, own your local practice while operating through a mature national independent broker-dealer platform.

Both models can create advisor autonomy.

They put the boundaries in different places.

Technology Has Become Recruiting Infrastructure Rather Than A Back-Office Feature

Lobo’s explicit mention of AI is also noteworthy because it reflects a broader change in how advisor technology is sold.

Technology used to be discussed primarily as a productivity system.

It is now part of recruiting identity.

A platform with poor technology can lose advisors even if its economics are competitive because the advisor knows weak systems will affect every employee and client interaction.

The Advisor Will Judge AI By Minutes Saved

The practical AI use cases are less glamorous than the marketing language.

Advisors are likely to care about whether tools can help with:

meeting preparation,
note generation,
workflow creation,
client segmentation,
document retrieval,
service-request routing,
portfolio analysis,
prospect research,
compliance review,
and identifying next-best actions across a large client base.

The important metric is not how advanced the model sounds.

It is whether the technology reduces friction without creating new supervisory, accuracy or privacy problems.

Raymond James continued investing in advisor technology after the Lobo & Pascale move, and its 2026 advisor materials still emphasize technology as part of the independent-channel proposition.

That suggests the recruiting pitch was not a one-time talking point.

Technology has become part of the infrastructure firms use to defend advisor loyalty.

Raymond James’ Later Results Show The Recruiting Momentum Became Financially Visible

The 2025 advisor moves also look more important with 2026 hindsight.

Raymond James reported record recruiting results for fiscal 2025, including $407 million of trailing 12-month production at advisors’ prior firms, a 21% increase over the previous record. The company also reported $52.4 billion of domestic Private Client Group net new assets for the year and ended fiscal 2025 with 8,943 affiliated financial advisors.

Momentum continued into fiscal 2026.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2026, Raymond James reported $21.7 billion of domestic Private Client Group net new assets, equivalent to 5.5% annualized growth from beginning-of-quarter assets, while Private Client Group assets under administration reached a record $1.86 trillion. The company said Private Client Group results continued to benefit from strong recruiting.

Those numbers do not isolate the contribution from Lobo & Pascale, Living Wells or former Commonwealth advisors.

They show that the broader recruiting environment reflected in the August 2025 roundup developed into a sustained firmwide growth factor.

Recruiting Success Raises The Service Bar

There is a catch.

A platform that recruits aggressively has to onboard aggressively.

Every additional team creates transition work, technology setup, service demand, compliance reviews and client-account movement.

Raymond James is now strengthening the operating leadership around its independent channel, a development NJ Financial News examined through its coverage ofindependent-channel leadership.

That is a logical next step.

Winning advisors is one capability.

Absorbing them without weakening service is another.

Sanctuary’s Current Model Shows Independence Is Becoming More Institutional

Sanctuary’s current platform points in the same direction from the other side of the market.

The company still markets independence, but the infrastructure around that independence increasingly resembles what sophisticated teams expect from large institutions. Its platform includes an RIA, broker-dealer, open-architecture custody, lending, alternative investments, insurance, capital-markets resources, practice consulting and centralized technology.

This is important because the old stereotype of independence was subtraction.

Leave the big firm.

Lose some resources.

Gain autonomy.

The newer model is trying to make independence additive.

Leave the big firm.

Gain ownership.

Then rebuild or partner for the institutional capabilities clients still need.

The Model Works Only If The Economics Support The Infrastructure

Sophisticated infrastructure is expensive.

Technology, cybersecurity, compliance personnel, alternative-investment due diligence, custody integrations and practice support all require capital.

A platform therefore needs enough advisor scale to support the investment.

That creates a growth flywheel if it works well.

Large advisors join because the platform has institutional capabilities. Their revenue and assets allow the platform to invest more. Better capabilities attract additional advisors.

But the same flywheel can reverse.

If growth outpaces service, advisors become frustrated. If advisors leave, the economics supporting the infrastructure weaken.

The strongest independent platforms will therefore be the ones that grow without making the advisor feel like the exact kind of employee number they left a wirehouse to escape.

UBS, Wells Fargo And Commonwealth Lost For Different Reasons

The source firms should not be treated as one category either.

UBS lost a $1.2 billion wirehouse team that wanted to build an independent business.

Wells Fargo lost veteran advisors who wanted greater freedom through an independent broker-dealer model.

Commonwealth lost a longtime team during the uncertainty created by its sale to LPL.

Those departures expose different vulnerabilities.

UBS Faces The Ownership Question

Large private-wealth teams can increasingly compare employee compensation with the economics of owning an enterprise.

The larger and more portable the practice, the stronger that argument can become.

UBS can counter with institutional capabilities, brand, integrated services and the simplicity of an employee model.

But it cannot make the ownership question disappear.

Wells Fargo Faces Both Employee And Independent Competition

Wells Fargo has its own independent channel through FiNet, which means the company understands the demand for autonomy.

Still, Bembry and Acosta chose Raymond James rather than remaining elsewhere inside the Wells Fargo ecosystem.

That makes the move a platform-selection loss as well as an employee-channel departure.

Commonwealth Faced Acquisition Uncertainty

Commonwealth’s problem was different because the firm had historically built strong advisor loyalty.

The LPL acquisition changed the long-term equation.

Raymond James became one of several firms able to tell Commonwealth advisors that they could preserve independence without waiting to see exactly what Commonwealth would become inside LPL.

The competitive dynamic has continued well beyond the first departures, as NJ Financial News has tracked through its broader coverage ofCommonwealth advisor competition.

The Recruiting Market Is Becoming A Business-Model Marketplace

The most important lesson from the roundup is not that Sanctuary or Raymond James had a good week.

It is that advisors can now shop for a remarkably specific operating model.

A practice can choose employment, independent contractor affiliation, hybrid RIA structures, stand-alone RIAs, custodial platforms, supported independence, minority capital or full acquisition models.

That changes recruiting.

The Advisor Is Building A Requirements List

The question is no longer simply, “Which firm pays the most?”

A sophisticated team may evaluate:

Ownership: Do we want equity in the business?
Economics: What does the long-term net income look like after expenses?
Custody: Do we want one institutional platform or several?
Technology: Which systems will staff actually use every day?
Client capabilities: Can the platform support the complexity of our largest households?
Brand: Do we want our own identity or the parent company’s name?
Compliance: How much responsibility do we want to carry locally?
Service: Who solves problems when operations become difficult?
Growth capital: Can the platform help us acquire other practices?
Succession: What happens to the equity when a founder retires?
Staffing: Can we recruit, compensate and retain the people needed to support growth?
Culture: Will the firm still feel like a partner when the next market crisis or operational problem arrives?

The best platform depends on the answers.

There is no universal end state called “independence.”

There are increasingly many forms of it.

The Client Should Care About The Model Even If The Advisor Relationship Stays The Same

Clients may not care whether the advisor calls the business an independent RIA, hybrid firm or independent broker-dealer practice.

They should care about the consequences.

The operating model can influence custody, product availability, fees, technology, lending options, planning resources and which legal entity is responsible for different services.

The Right Client Questions Go Beyond “Are You Still My Advisor?”

The advisor relationship may stay exactly the same while the infrastructure underneath it changes considerably.

A client should understand:

where assets will be held,
whether investment products transfer,
whether advisory agreements change,
what fees apply,
whether online access changes,
which firm supervises brokerage activity,
which entity provides advisory services,
whether banking or lending relationships will change,
whether tax documents remain available after the transition,
and whether the move introduces any new conflicts.

For Dial Square clients, the independence conversation also involves understanding the new relationship among the local advisory business, Sanctuary and the selected custodians.

For Lobo & Pascale and Living Wells clients, the local practice remains separate while securities and advisory functions sit within Raymond James entities.

Those structures are normal within the industry.

They should still be understandable to the client.

The Next Recruiting Advantage Will Come From Proving The Model After The Move

Recruiting announcements describe what advisors expect to gain.

The real verdict comes later.

A platform wins strategically when the recruited practice remains, transfers most of its assets, grows organically, recruits staff, attracts new clients and eventually becomes a reference another advisor can call during due diligence.

The Proof Points Are Different For Sanctuary And Raymond James

For Sanctuary, the questions include whether large wirehouse breakaways can preserve high-end service after leaving employee infrastructure, whether multi-custodial flexibility remains manageable and whether partner firms actually build enterprise value.

For Raymond James, the questions center more heavily on whether scale, technology and centralized support can coexist with the autonomy independent advisors expect.

Both firms also face a cultural test.

Sanctuary must grow without becoming so institutional that its “partnered independence” proposition feels less personal.

Raymond James must recruit record numbers of advisors without weakening the service and culture that help distinguish its independent channel from other giant broker-dealers.

The 2026 numbers suggest Raymond James has continued winning substantial business, while Sanctuary continues adding breakaway and independent firms.

The harder test will be durability.

Bottom Line: The $1.8 Billion Roundup Was Really A Map Of Modern Independence

InvestmentNews described advisor teams managing almost $2 billion taking the leap into independence.

That was true.

But they were not taking the same leap.

Dial Square Private Wealth left UBS with approximately $1.2 billion and built an independent business through Sanctuary with Schwab and Goldman Sachs serving as custodians. Chiate and Guinane were choosing ownership, open architecture and the possibility of building enterprise value around a practice they had spent decades creating.

Lobo & Pascale Wealth Management made a different decision. After more than two decades with Commonwealth, the team chose another established independent platform after Commonwealth’s ownership changed, emphasizing technology, sophisticated resources and client alignment as reasons Raymond James offered the right next home.

Living Wells Financial Group added a third version. Bembry and Acosta left long careers at Wells Fargo because independence and freedom had become more important to how they wanted to serve clients and structure the next phase of the practice.

The destinations are different because the practices are different.

A billion-dollar ultra-high-net-worth breakaway may want ownership plus multiple custodians and institutional investment resources. A longtime Commonwealth team may already value independence but want a new national platform. A veteran wirehouse advisor may want autonomy without building a stand-alone RIA from scratch.

That is why advisor recruiting is becoming harder to understand through simple winner-and-loser tables.

The real competition is happening at the operating-model level.

Sanctuary is betting that sophisticated advisors increasingly want to own the enterprise they created while partnering for infrastructure. Raymond James is betting that many of those same entrepreneurial advisors want ownership at the practice level while keeping a large national platform behind them.

Both bets can be right.

The future of advisor independence may not belong to one model.

It may belong to the platforms that become best at letting advisors choose exactly how independent they want to be.

Frequently Asked Questions About Sanctuary And Raymond James Advisor Moves

Why Did Dial Square Private Wealth Leave UBS For Sanctuary Wealth?
Dial Square founders Jim Chiate and Tony Guinane said the move followed a lengthy evaluation of the independent wealth-management market, and Chiate specifically contrasted independence with simply moving to another traditional wirehouse or private bank. By launching through Sanctuary, the team gained ownership of its new practice, selected Charles Schwab and Goldman Sachs as custodians and entered a platform designed to combine advisor control with centralized operational, compliance, technology and growth support. For a team managing approximately $1.2 billion, the decision therefore involved much more than changing broker-dealers because it changed the economic and ownership structure around the business the advisors had built.
Why Did Lobo & Pascale Leave Commonwealth After More Than 20 Years?
Lobo & Pascale Wealth Management had been affiliated with Commonwealth for more than two decades, but Commonwealth’s acquisition by LPL created a natural point for the team to reconsider its long-term platform. When Raymond James announced the move, Jeremy Lobo emphasized technology, including artificial intelligence, while Chris Pascale highlighted Raymond James’ advanced technology and high-net-worth expertise as tools that could support a more sophisticated client experience. The move illustrates how an acquisition can break the inertia around a longtime affiliation and give competitors a chance to win teams that may otherwise have had little reason to consider changing firms.
What Is The Difference Between Sanctuary’s Model And Raymond James Financial Services?
Sanctuary markets a partnered-independence structure that can support advisors building independently branded businesses through a hybrid RIA and broker-dealer ecosystem with access to multiple custodians and centralized resources. Raymond James Financial Services is Raymond James’ established independent advisor channel, where locally owned practices operate through the firm’s broker-dealer and affiliated advisory infrastructure while accessing Raymond James technology, investment, planning, transition and business-management resources. Both can provide meaningful advisor autonomy, but Sanctuary generally puts more emphasis on building a separately owned enterprise with open architecture, while RJFS provides a more standardized national independent broker-dealer framework.
Why Do Large Wirehouse Teams Keep Considering Independence?
Large teams can be attracted to independence because successful practices increasingly think about business ownership, enterprise value, succession, brand control and the ability to select technology or investment resources more directly. At the same time, modern independent platforms can provide compliance, technology, custody, lending, investment and practice-management infrastructure that once made leaving a wirehouse far more difficult. The trade-off is that independence can shift additional operating, staffing and business-management responsibility onto the advisor, so the model is most attractive when the team values ownership enough to accept or outsource those additional responsibilities.
What Should Clients Ask When Their Financial Advisor Changes Firms?
Clients should focus on practical changes rather than the recruiting headline by asking where their assets will be held, whether account numbers or online access will change, whether all current investments can transfer, whether fees or advisory agreements are changing and which legal entity will provide brokerage or advisory services after the move. They should also ask whether the advisor’s support team, planning process, lending relationships or investment options will change because those factors can affect the day-to-day client experience even when the advisor personally remains the same. Understanding those details gives clients a clearer basis for deciding whether to follow an advisor than simply relying on claims that one platform offers greater independence or better resources.