Raymond James Financial’s acquisitions this year helped push up revenues and assets under administration to all-time highs for the company.
Client AUA rose 26% over fiscal 2016, to US$604.4 billion from US$480 billion a year earlier, Raymond James said in its year-end results.
The growth included about US$50 billion in client assets and about 265 advisors added through the acquisitions of Deutsche Bank AG’s American private client services unit (rebranded as Alex Brown) and 3Macs. Total advisors climbed to 7,146 at the end of Q4 from 6,596 a year earlier.
Read: Raymond James ready to acquire more advisors
“Even if you excluded those additional assets, our assets under administration would have grown roughly 15% on a year-over-year basis,” chief executive Paul Reilly said on a call with analysts Thursday morning. “We’ve retained approximately 90% of the Alex Brown team and nearly 100% of the 3Macs advisors.”
Net income for Q4 ending September 30 was a record US$171.7 million, the company said, and quarterly net revenues were also a high of US$1.46 billion. Quarterly asset management revenues rose 7% to US$106.4 million from US$99.9 million in Q4 a year earlier.
Read: Stakes are high in U.S. fiduciary debate
“We expect legal and regulatory expenses to remain elevated as we comply with DoL and other regulations. That’s going to have an impact,” said Reilly, referring to the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed new fiduciary standard that will effectively require advisors working on retirement accounts to act as fiduciaries, putting their clients’ interests first.
The rule is raising questions about how it would affect advisor fees and commissions.
“I know questions will come up with the DoL. We’ve been very clear from the beginning that our focus has been complying with the rule but giving the maximum flexibility for our advisors to serve our clients, and have clients have choice,” Reilly said.
Also read: