Two former Raymond James executives have opened a new advisory firm on Concurrent Investment Advisors' platform, betting that advisors who left the wirehouse and independent broker-dealer channels for independence are hungry for a partner that can help them scale.
In a Wednesday announcement, Concurrent welcomed Chris Davitt and Anupam Singh as the leaders of the newly launched Proxima Wealth Partners, a Tampa, Florida-based practice built to recruit teams looking to grow enterprise value through organic growth, advisor recruiting, and M&A.
Every advisor who joins Proxima will be offered an equity stake in the firm, a structure designed to mirror the ownership incentives that have made independent channels increasingly attractive to advisors weighing a break from their current firm.
Davitt – who most recently ran one of the largest regions within Raymond James' Private Client Group, overseeing employee branches in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado – will lead recruiting and enterprise-value growth for Proxima as outsourced chief growth officer.
Singh, formerly vice president of platform strategy and operations for Raymond James' Asset Management Services unit, will oversee technology, operations, financial and risk management as outsourced chief operating officer.
Concurrent will supply the institutional infrastructure behind Proxima, including its investment platform, enterprise technology and risk management resources, along with strategic capital to back advisor transitions and acquisitions.
"Many advisors who choose independence underestimate the burden of running and operating a small business," Singh said in a written statement. "Proxima helps minimize this burden so advisors can spend more time with their clients and drive meaningful value in their businesses."
Davitt highlighted Proxima and Concurrent's "[shared] commitment to advisor independence," while underscoring Concurrent's "use of long-term capital to help advisors grow and monetize their life’s work."
Concurrent CEO Nate Lenz, who also previously operated within the Raymond James system, highlighted Davitt and Singh's "proven track record of leading impressive growth.
"They could have gone anywhere, and they chose to build their own firm on our chassis, which is precisely what this platform was designed to do," Lenz said.
Lenz founded Concurrent in 2017 as an office of supervisory jurisdiction within Raymond James' independent broker-dealer arm. That branch held almost $13 billion in client assets when it announced plans to leave Raymond James in 2022 and restructure as a multicustodial, hybrid RIA. Weeks later, the firm selected Fidelity Clearing and Custody Solutions as its preferred custodian while also giving clients the option to custody with Charles Schwab.
Concurrent has since added Goldman Sachs to its custodian roster and expanded well beyond its RayJay roots. Supported by Merchant Investment Management, it launched RIA Capital Partners in June last year to take minority stakes in RIAs with between $200 million and $500 million in assets. At the time, Lenz said the program was meant to bridge gap left by minority investors that typically gun for billion-dollar-plus firms.
Last month, Concurrent added Potomac Financial Group, a $750 million practice that marked the firm's first foothold in Maryland. At that point, the firm had surpassed $21 billion in AUM, driven by what Lenz saw as a growing trend of independent broker-dealer advisors moving toward the RIA model.
According to research by Cerulli, independent and hybrid RIAs grew assets under management at annualized rates of 10.9% and 12.2%, respectively, over the past decade, increasing their combined share of industry assets from 21% in 2014 to 27% in 2024. Among all advisors it surveyed, 71% say they would choose to be affiliated or employed within the independent channel if they were to switch firms.
Among advisors who say they would prefer to break away to an independent model, 90% cite losing clients during the transition as a moderate or major concern, and 88% cite the start-up expenses of opening a new business as a concern. Assuming additional operational responsibilities was also a mental sticking point for 88% of would-be breakaways, while 84% were wary of the ongoing costs of operating a business.
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