Metro Detroit-based Nemes-Rush Group to join Raymond James & Associates. Another brokerage team has left Merrill Lynch. The Nemes-Rush Group, led by Merrill veterans Charles Nemes and Timothy Rush and supported by three associates, plans to open a new branch for Raymond James & Associates (RJA) in Novi, Mich., a suburb of Detroit.

As a Merrill team, Nemes-Rush accounted for $520 million in assets across 250 relationships and $3.75 million in revenue last year.

Good question

Merrill is slated to become part of Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America early in 2009. Partly as a result of that -- departures are common when mergers are in the works -- and partly because of a financial crisis that has tarnished the brand value of Wall Street firms, several high-profile teams have left the giant retail brokerage, with more expected to follow in coming months.

Nemes-Rush upped stakes for RJA, the captive-broker business of Raymond James Financial, to mollify jittery clients, according to Nemes. "Some clients who've been with us for a number of years were asking if their assets were safe," he told Investment News. "As one client put it, 'How can we feel comfortable that our money is being managed responsibly when the firm we're putting the money with can't manage its own finances?' They shouldn't have to go through that kind of stress."

St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Raymond James Financial is reputed to have steered clear of much of the financial brinksmanship that got its rivals into trouble -- whether in the form of bankruptcy, like Lehman Brothers, or into obviously irksome mergers.

Raymond James Financial has three broker-dealer subsidiaries: RJA, Raymond James Financial Services, a platform provider for independent brokers, RIAs and other financial-service providers, and its Canadian subsidiary Raymond James Ltd. Altogether these businesses support 4,900 advisors in 2,200 locations with clients assets of $212 billion across 1.8 million accounts at the end of June 2008. -FWR

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