Former Stifel Indie Team Managing $1 Billion Jumps to Raymond James

Large teams from Stifel’s former independent broker-dealer unit continue to splinter off in the wake of the unit’s sale in April. Raymond James Financial Services has reeled in a former Stifel Independent Advisors team that managed $1 billion in client assets, according to an announcement. The KWM Wealth Advisory team, which is led by Kenneth A. Sanchez, Lee S. Wolfe, Mitchell E. Kauffman and KaNoi Lam, joined Raymond James’ independent unit in Pasadena, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii, according to the announcement. The team includes four additional advisors and five support staff, according to their website. They registered with Raymond James on May 11. The group had joined Stifel Independent Advisors from Wells Fargo in 2022, a year after the St. Louis-based firm revamped the unit and rebranded it from Century Securities Associates. They managed $720 million at the time. Stifel in April finalized its sale of the independent unit to Equitable Advisors. The independent unit had around 110 advisors managing $9 billion in assets. That represented about 5% of Stifel’s total advisor headcount and less than 2% of its client assets at the time. Stifel on Wednesday reported that it had reeled in advisors with annual revenue of $30 million over the past year. It no longer reports its overall advisor headcount and last had around 2,300 brokers, including the independent advisors who moved to Equitable. A spokesperson for Stifel did not respond to a request for comment. Members of the team also did not respond to requests for comment sent through social media. Sanchez first registered with Pruco Securities in 1996, according to BrokerCheck. Wolfe with Cigna Financial Advisors in 1996; Kauffman with Equitec Securities in 1982; and Lam with Smith Barney in 1998. Raymond James executives on Wednesday said that the firm is on track for a record recruiting year based on assets and revenue of the advisors it has hired.