Both chief executive officers of Stifel Financial and Ameriprise Financial are prioritizing their commitment to growing their wealth businesses through recruiting effort according to AdvisorHub.

In the third quarter alone, Stifel has hired 16 experienced advisors with total trailing-12-month production of $14 million. Stifel's CEO told analysts that recruiting activity remains strong. Still, the company has seen that the pullback in the market has slowed the actual transition of advisors while simultaneously accelerating retirement. Despite the volatile markets, Stifel intends to prioritize spending excess capital on recruiting efforts rather than acquisitions in the wealth business. At the end of the third quarter, Stifel had 2,235 financial advisors, up 1 percent year-over-year from 2,212 advisors when factoring in non-experienced hires. 

Similarly, Ameriprise has added 89 highly productive advisors. CEO James Cracchiolo noted that the company is seeking younger prospects with whom it can build succession options and help advisors extend their teams. Ameriprise completed the third quarter with 10,282 advisors in its employee and franchisee independent contractor channels, which represents a 2 percent increase or 209 more than the same period in 2021. According to AdvisorHub, Ameriprise's franchisee channel experienced the majority of the increase in headcount.

Financial Advisor Transitions consults advisors nationwide to explore employment transition options and to preserve and protect their practice in any transition that they make.