Greenwood Wealth Partners' David Lorbiecki-Led $1.25B Team Exits D.M. Kelly for Raymond James as Merrill Bleeds Advisors to UBS and Ameriprise

Merrill Lynch is hemorrhaging talent in both coastal markets and the Midwest simultaneously. If your book sits between $120M and $1.25B, every major platform—Raymond James, UBS, and Ameriprise—is actively building a case for your move right now.

David Lorbiecki, Dan 'Chris' McPhail Jr., David Haas, and Willis Gaer just handed Raymond James one of its cleaner recruiting wins of the fall: the four-advisor Greenwood Wealth Partners team carried approximately $1.25 billion in client assets out of D.M. Kelly & Company and landed in Clive, Iowa, inside Raymond James Associates, the firm's employee-advisor channel.

Practice business manager Holly Ellsworth made the move alongside the advisors—a detail that signals this wasn't a rushed transition but an organized team migration. Lorbiecki and McPhail joined as senior vice presidents of investments; Haas came aboard as vice president of investments. That title structure suggests Raymond James fought for this team and structured a deal that reflected the full weight of a $1.25 billion book.

Raymond James Builds Midwest Density with a D.M. Kelly Extraction

D.M. Kelly & Company isn't a household name on the coasts, but it's an established regional player in Iowa. Pulling a team of this size from a regional firm—rather than a wirehouse—shows Raymond James is casting a wider net than its competitors. The firm doesn't need a Merrill or Morgan Stanley defector to generate headlines when a $1.25 billion team from the heartland makes just as strong a statement about platform appeal.

This follows a pattern Raymond James has been running hard. Raymond James recently recruited the five-advisor Harris Wealth Partners team from Commonwealth Financial Network, adding roughly $500 million in Rochester, New York. Between that deal and the Greenwood capture, Raymond James has quietly absorbed close to $1.75 billion in new assets in a matter of weeks.

UBS Moves on Merrill's California Footprint with Pham and Yip

While Raymond James was closing in Iowa, UBS was working Merrill Lynch's California corridor. John Pham departed Merrill for a UBS office in Palo Alto; Jimmy Yip made the same exit to UBS in San Jose. Three client associates—Leslie Vinoya, Kimberly Russell, and Randall Bane—moved with them, indicating that both advisors brought their full operational infrastructure rather than leaving support staff behind.

Asset figures for Pham and Yip weren't disclosed, but the Silicon Valley geography matters. Palo Alto and San Jose client relationships often carry a technology-sector concentration that commands outsized AUM relative to headcount. UBS's private banking infrastructure and alternative investment access make it a logical landing spot for advisors serving high-net-worth tech wealth. This isn't UBS stumbling into a recruit—it's deliberate positioning against Merrill in one of the country's wealthiest metro corridors.

Ameriprise Catches a Florida Merrill Breakaway Through The Atlantic Group

In Boca Raton, Colin Gates left Merrill Lynch carrying more than $120 million in client assets and joined The Atlantic Group, an Ameriprise branch led by Andrew Lerner and Logan Shalmi. The move landed Gates inside Ameriprise's branch channel rather than its independent network—a distinction that matters for advisors weighing the tradeoff between infrastructure support and practice autonomy.

For Gates, folding into an established Ameriprise branch with named leadership likely offered a faster ramp and a ready client-service infrastructure. For Ameriprise, it's another Merrill extraction that reinforces the firm's ability to compete for mid-market books in affluent Florida markets where Merrill has historically run deep. Advisors watching Ameriprise recruiting deals should note that the branch channel is increasingly a first-call option for advisors who want institutional support without a full independence leap.

What Three Simultaneous Moves Tell You About the Recruiting Market Right Now

Three firms. Three different states. Three different prior employers—D.M. Kelly, Merrill Lynch (twice). What connects them is timing and intent. Recruiting activity is accelerating into fall, and platforms are moving quickly to lock in advisors before year-end retention packages and deferred comp cliffs make decisions harder.

Merrill Lynch's dual losses in California and Florida in a single news cycle aren't catastrophic in isolation, but the pattern matters. If you track Merrill Lynch advisor departures over the past 18 months, the volume of outbound movement to UBS, Ameriprise, and regional firms signals something more structural than routine attrition.

For advisors managing $100 million to $1.5 billion, the intelligence here is straightforward: Raymond James is absorbing regional firm talent at scale, UBS is targeting high-net-worth coastal markets aggressively, and Ameriprise is converting Merrill advisors through its branch infrastructure with increasing efficiency. All three platforms are open for business—and the deals are getting done fast. Full recruiting details were reported by Investment News.