19 Best & Worst BDs for Recruiting in 2023: Report

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Last year was a blowout period for recruiting in the independent sphere, and an even busier year for experienced advisor moves than 2022 was, according to a new report published Tuesday by the industry recruiting firm Diamond Consultants.

Last year, moves among advisors with over three years of experience increased 7.5% over 2022, the report found. In total, 9,674 experienced advisors switched firms in 2023 versus 9,006 in 2022.

The industry has an estimated total of 300,000 advisors, the report said, so the estimated  turnover rate was around 4% to 5% for experienced advisors outside of the bank-based channel.

The greatest net gains in the report were in the independent broker-dealer channel, which had a net influx of 563 experienced advisors, while regional BDs had a smaller total net gain of 41. The wirehouse channel saw a net loss of 348 experienced advisors, although Morgan Stanley had strong gains.

In 2024, “I expect a fairly similar number of moves as we saw in 2023. I wouldn’t expect a major acceleration…. Or a major slowdown,” report co-author Jason Diamond, executive vice president and senior consultant at Diamond Consultants, said in an interview.

The report was based on data pulled from Discovery Data, trade magazine news articles, research by Cerulli Associates, and in-house data from moves that Diamond Consultants advised on.

Raymond James and Wells Fargo are broken into employee and independent channels as separate entries. Firms known as “boutiques,” such as Rockefeller Capital Management, J.P. Morgan Advisors and William Blair, were not included.

All headcount data represents figures as of Dec. 31, 2023, unless otherwise indicated.

Scroll through the slides to see who was a net loser of experienced advisors, and who came out on top last year.

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