Raymond James Financial, Inc. (RJF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning to those of you in the room and those of you joining us on the webcast. My name is Steve Chubak. I cover diversified financials here at Wolfe Research. Really pleased to introduce our next speaker, Paul Shoukry, CEO of Raymond James. Raymond James has seen really outsized growth over the past decade plus within the wealth channel. I think one of the really unique attributes is their omnichannel offering. It's something that's really differentiated in the marketplace. It clearly has driven better organic flow outcomes. So we're going to spend a lot of time digging into the organic flow outlook, the outlook for the wealth business more broadly, but we'll also touch on expenses, capital markets, just to keep Paul on his toes.

So maybe to start, Paul, you've been CEO now for 9 months, might be helpful just to outline your strategic priorities and how your approach may or may not differ relative to your predecessor?

Great. Well, Steve, it's great to be here. We're just talking, I think I've been to every one of these conferences since Steve joined the firm. So it's great to -- always great to be here and see the conference get bigger and bigger every year. Yes, in terms of the priorities of the firm, it's really remained unchanged, and that's -- we want to be the absolute best firm for financial professionals and their clients. And so the way we do that, I've been spending about 80% of my time on the road meeting with financial advisers, bankers, clients and really getting their feedback on what are we doing well and what can we do to be even better partners for you, your team and your clients. And that's informed our strategy going forward. And then, some of the things that we're working on, technology, we spend about $1 billion a year on technology. AI is certainly an area of significant focus. We're using AI to not only create and gain efficiencies in the back and middle office, we say we want to be able to do more with the same number of people, we're still budgeted to grow headcount next year, but we are getting more efficiencies with the help of AI, automation and technology, but also in the front office to help advisers save time with documenting meetings and prepping for meetings and those sorts of things. So -- and also at the end of the day, creating client-driven insights so they can provide more tailored and bespoke advice to a larger number of clients. So we're still in the early innings of AI, but one of the very first things I did as CEO was announce a new Chief AI Officer. He has now hired a Head of AI Strategy from one of the large firms, and we're really dedicated, investing a lot of money, looking at third-party vendors, internal solutions that we need to build ourselves. And again, the focus with AI is not to disintermediate our advisers and go direct to clients like a lot of our other competitors, but really, it's to enable our advisers to provide better and more personalized and more tailored service to their clients. Another initiative that came through with the feedback from advisers and financial professionals is just broadening the -- continuing to broaden the products that we offer, that they can offer their clients. And so alternative investments is one. I see that before and after this presentation, you're speaking to alternative investment firms. So those are all great partners for us in terms of just helping advisers, especially for the higher-net-worth clients, provide alternative solutions. Now, alternatives are not for everyone. We don't have some aspirational allocation target that we want to hit with alternatives because really, alternatives are unique to each individual investor, and they are more illiquid than public securities. And so we need to make sure that alternatives to the extent that we sell them that those clients are comfortable with the amount of liquidity that they would have in their portfolio by adding alternatives. And they tend to become less liquid when you need the cash the most. And so when things are going well, liquidity is usually more abundant than it is when things aren't going well and you need that cash. So we're cautious. We're growing, expanding the platform, expanding the education, but we're not going to try to set a firm-wide allocation target, but we are investing heavily in that platform as well as investing in our asset management platform with fee-based managed accounts, tax-harvesting products, et cetera. So really just continuing to do what we've always done, which is put advisers and financial professionals who treat them like clients, respect the relationship that they have with their clients and also just continuing to invest in the platform. And it's working. You look at -- you see it in our recruiting results. Last year, we recruited advisers with $421 million of production at their prior firm, $421 million. That's bigger than a lot of midsized firms in our industry that we recruited in 1 year. That was a record that was up 21% from the record we achieved the prior year. And I know we'll talk more about recruiting, I'm sure. Retention continues to be good. It's a very competitive environment out there. So there are challenges with the larger deals out there from private equity-backed roll-ups. But retention -- notwithstanding that, the retention remains very good. And just last week, we received the results from our Adviser Insights survey. We have 98% adviser satisfaction right now, 98% adviser satisfaction, which is the highest since 2014. So the morale of our existing advisers, most importantly, is very good, the interest from prospective advisers is at record levels. Our pipelines are strong heading into our fiscal 2026. And so we continue to be a destination of choice again, as Steve said, across all of our affiliation options.

Well, I will say this is the fifth time you've been here, this is definitely the most enthusiastic you've sounded about the prospects for the firm. And as we think about the macro, with rates down, but equity markets up, IB appears to be normalizing. So some improvement in the capital markets trends. Speak to what you're hearing from the financial advisers in terms of like their sentiment, their client sentiment? What it means for activity levels across both the private client side and even capital markets, if you can touch on that, too?

Yes. Just as recently as 2 nights ago, we had a dinner downtown here in New York with about 250 of our advisers. And I asked all of them about what are they hearing from their clients, and the equity markets are at or near record levels depending on which benchmarks you track. And so while there's all these headlines around tariffs and government shutdown and other things, really, the clients are very pleased with the service that they're getting with their advisers, with their portfolios, with the financial plans that they have in place. 97% of clients, by the way, in the same survey are pleased with the service that they're getting from their financial advisers. So very strong satisfaction, and they're mostly optimistic about the markets, as are we. As a firm, our CIO, Larry Adam, I mean, as we look at 2026, we think with the benefit of lower rates and also tax cuts, that the economy, we're expecting 2% GDP growth next year. And so we're expecting a relatively strong economy. That doesn't mean that there won't be cycles and there won't be disruption in the markets at some point. We all know they come. We can't ever time them. But in terms of the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, we're pretty optimistic.

That's great. And maybe if we think about some of the context that you offered around organic growth. And specifically, like if I look over the last few years, you saw a little bit of a moderation in the past, too, although obviously, revenue production has certainly been steadily improving, as you noted. This year, you've definitely seen some re-acceleration. So, Paul, as we think about where you used to deliver high single digits, law of large numbers, that's moderated to mid-single, still better than the industry. What do you think is an achievable target over the long term, even as your business continues to scale?

I mean, most importantly, we have been leading growers in the industry consistently for many, many years. And that starts with retention of our existing advisers. We focus a lot on making sure that our existing advisers are satisfied with Raymond James. And on that foundation, recruiting to our multiple affiliation options, the employee -- traditional employee channel, the independent contractor channel, financial institutions division and the RIA custody business as well. And so the entire industry, some of the net flow percentages have come down. Frankly, a lot of it is just due to equity market appreciation. You have a bigger base. And so percentages go down even if the absolute dollars are the same. And then, during COVID, there was a lot of net new sales in terms of organic growth of existing clients who are bringing more, they're getting leave money or they're not able to spend their money on vacation and ski trips. So they were investing more with their financial advisers and really bringing in a lot of cash from other places to Raymond James. So we launched the enhanced savings program during the California banking crisis, and we grew that to $14 billion in a very short period of time because people were bringing in their cash from other places to get up to $50 million -- 5-0 million of FDIC insurance at an attractive rate. So we're -- we've continued to gain wallet share. We're continuing to recruit very well across our affiliation options. As I said, our pipeline is very strong after a record year last year, and the retention continues to be good. Really, the only headwind we have in NNA is some of the PE-backed roll-up money that's in the space now. It's been -- they target some of the larger firms and offer checks that we can't justify. And so we have had some of those issues, and also, some of the super-OSJs that where it's not a good fit for us and for them anymore. And so they go off to other platforms, which net-net is good for both them and for Raymond James. And they're not usually the most profitable firms anyway on the platform by the time they make that transition. So there's some offsets to the NNA percentages, but the quality of growth that we have relative to what we're losing is very strong. And so we're optimistic about the quality of the growth we have going forward. And we're also optimistic that some of this disruption in the roll-up space at some point will be a huge opportunity for a stable firm like Raymond James. So just in the last 18 months, what we're hearing more than ever from advisers, that are observing all this noise around them from all these firms, which, by the way, by definition, their holding periods of, what, 3 to 5 years. So there's going to be another period of disruption. Even if everything goes perfectly well, they're most likely going to have to transition and repaper and make some type of change. What we're hearing from advisers in the last 18 months is, "You know what, I want to go to a firm that's permanent capital, that's long term, that's stable. I'll make one more change for my team and for my clients, but I don't want to have to make another change 3 years later". And so being a beacon of stability in the industry and having the multiple affiliation options, but being a source of stability and strength, we get questions on our balance sheet all the time. The strong balance sheet, increasingly a differentiator, because, again, they know that a cycle will eventually come. They want to make sure that the firm that they're affiliating with and that they're entrusting their client assets with will be able to withstand those cycles. So having the strong capital position becoming increasingly important as we get longer into this bull market. And so our value proposition just continuing to resonate more and more to advisers across the industry.

It's really encouraging to hear. And I guess, like the attrition you're seeing, I suppose, is less regrettable attrition is from what I can gather. And as we think about the momentum that you're seeing across the 3 different channels, is there any one particular channel where you're seeing like outsized inbound interest or more meaningful expansion relative across RIA, IBD and employee?

I mean it's really broad-based. I do a lot of meetings and dinners with prospective advisers. And just last night, we're dealing with -- I was having dinner with an extremely large team from one of the wirehouses that's interested in the employee channel. Now, the other interesting thing about Raymond James that's unique is they might be interested in the independent channel 7, 10 years from now. And -- but those advisers that are looking to move to an employee channel with the option of potentially moving independent 7 to 10 years from now, they're really intrigued by Raymond James because they can do that all on the same platform. We have an adviser choice value proposition. So the number of advisers that come and say, "You know, I don't know if I want to be independent or not, but I like the idea of joining Raymond James. You have the culture, the capabilities that are very attractive to us as a firm and to our clients". And in 7 to 10 years, if I want to move to independents, if we have retirements and succession on the team and the new generation wants to move to independents, we can do that at Raymond James. And that's a very unique value proposition in the industry right now. So that's also another appealing part of the platform.

And, Paul, you've always been known to have a really unique and differentiated culture, which has enabled you to track a lot of advisers without necessarily having to pay up or engage in some of the irrational behavior that we've seen. You noted that private equity was bidding pretty aggressively for some of these teams or properties. Are you seeing more rational behavior today? And are you feeling compelled to adjust your compensation for advisers? Or are you sticking to the status quo?

So we ultimately have to be competitive, right? That doesn't mean we have to be the highest check near term. But between the upfront money and the long-term growth potential as we help them grow their business and be a source of stability, they need to see the economic upside of affiliating with Raymond James. So when the market becomes more competitive, we obviously have to lean in as well. We don't want to attract the advisers who are just looking for the highest upfront check. That's very clear, like in our value proposition. We want the advisers who want to be at the firm long term and earn, sort of optimize their economics over a long period of time by growing their businesses, by getting the payout over a long period of time and all the benefits that are offered at Raymond James. Because if you aggressively go after the advisers that are looking for the -- just the biggest upfront check and they don't care about the cultural aspects and the capabilities and the ability to help them grow their business, then in 5 to 7 years when that check runs off or gets close to running off, they're going to leave to another firm for the next biggest check, right? And we don't -- that's not good for us. We don't want that, the adviser teams are looking for that type of churn. Now, if your holding period is only 3 to 5 years in a particular investment, that's fine for you. That might be perfectly aligned with your strategy, right? Because 7 years is -- you'll be gone. You'll be at the next -- on the next platform by 7 years' time. We're looking at this as a 10- to 20-year partnership and beyond. We tell advisers -- the advisers I had dinner with last night, I said the same thing to them that I say to every adviser, please don't join Raymond James if you can't envision yourself being here for the rest of your careers. That means there's something that you -- some doubt that you have with the firm that is not ultimately the best destination for you. We look at it as a marriage. So we've got to be the absolute best partner for you, your team and your clients, and you've got to be able to envision yourselves being with us for the rest of your careers. And if you can't convince yourself of those 2 things, please don't join Raymond James or force us to prove that we're the best partner for you and your clients. They're not hearing that from a lot of other firms, right, particularly the roll-ups, right? Because that's a very high bar to set, but that's what we hold ourselves accountable to, and we need to prove that to our -- to the prospective advisers that want to affiliate with us. And it's true for prospective investment bankers, too, prospective traders, prospective salespeople. We want this to be the last move that they make in their career, and we want them to look back. The thing that is most energizing to me when I travel the country is when advisers say to me or bankers say to me, "The best professional decision I ever made was affiliating with Raymond James 5 years ago. And the biggest regret I have is I didn't do it 3 to 5 years earlier". And I hear that every place that I go. Again, I travel 80% of my time. I hear that on trips. I hear that multiple times on the same trip. And that -- and when the Board asks how are we going to measure success 5, 10, 15 years from now, of course, we'll have financial metrics. And, of course, those metrics will be impacted by externalities that we can't control. But the real litmus test should be in 10 years or 15 years when we're going around the country visiting with our financial professionals, are they still saying the best professional decision, often with tears in their eyes, they're so emotional about it, that they ever made was joining Raymond James and the biggest regret that they have is not joining 3 to 5 years earlier. And hopefully, what you're picking up on that's differentiated with Raymond James and really a big part of our strategy going forward is we're going to call it the power of personal. The personal relationships really matter to us in terms of the personal relationships we have with our financial professionals and the relationships they have with their clients. And in this world of all this fast money coming into our industry, all this increased competition, in some ways, while it's become more competitive in a lot of ways for the way we compete at Raymond James, we have fewer competitors than we ever had in terms of competing with those personal relationships, competing with that long-term vision of being the last home that you'll ever need to affiliate with for you and your clients. That value proposition was frankly more competitive 10 or 20 years ago than it is today because so much of the focus today is on the transaction, on the flip, and that's not what we're about. And so that we're -- in some ways, while things have become more competitive, it's for us, the way we compete has become less competitive in a lot of ways.

It's interesting how you frame that, Paul, because as I think about like your long-term orientation, your unique culture, we have an adviser on the move tracker, and we look at the types of teams you're attracting. It's a lot of wirehouse teams that want to make that jump to independence, and you're their destination of choice. There was a recent M&A transaction that had some high-quality adviser teams, and you've been clearly the destination of choice for a lot of those advisers, too. As we think about the PE consolidators and the roll-ups, those teams are typically ones that you haven't recruited as proactively. So do you still view like Raymond James as a destination of choice for some of the teams that exist at those firms as well? Are you trying to broaden the net? Or are you still focused on that quality bias?

It's always quality over quantity for us. And again, those -- I think a lot of those roll-ups will become opportunities for us once they realize that it's not permanent capital and that there's going to be a lot of disruption in that space as well. But some of the most energizing recruiting meetings I have, I was in South Carolina a week or 2 ago, was with a senior adviser and his successor, who is younger in the business, but growing rapidly. And the senior adviser was really excited about Raymond James because he wanted a better home for his successor long term. He said, "You know, I want my successor to join a firm that was like the firm I joined when I was his age 30 years ago". And that's music to our ears because they understand the value of being partners with a firm that's going to liberate them and enable them to grow their business and focus on their clients. So that's really the difference. And they hear that difference. I mean, the folks I was at dinner with just last night, a couple of blocks away, they said, what we're saying is totally different than what they're hearing at their other dinners. That doesn't appeal to everybody. But again, we don't want to appeal to the group of advisers who are just looking for the biggest upfront check and they're okay with whatever happens in the next 3 to 4 years. That's not who we're focused on.

So maybe pivoting just a discussion around cash, which is certainly garnering a fair amount of focus given the expectation for deeper Fed rate cuts. As we think about the past year, where sweep cash has started to stabilize a little bit with Fed funds around this low 4 handle, are we now at the point, Paul, in your mind that where we should start to see cash balances grow in line with M&A, that yield-seeking behavior is starting to abate just given how profitable some of these NII streams are? It's certainly something where we'd appreciate your perspective.

Yes. It certainly feels that way across the industry when you look at that sorting activity that now we're sort of getting to the point, especially with lower rates, where all the cash that was investable cash that the vast majority of cash that was investable cash has been deployed into higher-yielding alternatives. And as we grow assets going forward, hopefully, those cash balances will continue to grow with those assets. So -- I always like to point to 3 or 4 or 5 quarters of performance before guaranteeing anything or calling it a trend. And so we haven't seen that trend yet across the industry. It's still -- we've seen the trend change from declining balances to more stable balances. But across the industry, we haven't -- we still haven't seen the balances grow in full transparency. So that's what we need to see next. But I think the sort of the logic and the rate trajectory would certainly support that hypothesis that that's what would happen going forward.

And so as we think about the NII trajectory and all the different inputs, so on the last call, you were constructive on loan growth, certainly with lower rates or some expectation at SBL growth, which you certainly have exposure to, that could accelerate. We could see cash balances inflect. And you do have some room to flex deposits. I know you guided to flattish NII. But even in the face of incremental rate cuts, is there a credible path to actually growing NII next year given some of those positive volume drivers?

Yes. I mean our goal is to grow -- certainly to grow NII over time, given all those factors that you just described, whether it would happen in a year or so, I'm not sure. We don't try to -- a year in the grand scheme of things is a very short period of time for us. So with rates depending on how much it drops versus how much balances grow and how much lending balances grow, I can't -- it's hard to know. There's a lot of different variables in terms of what happens in the next year. But beyond that, we are absolutely confident that we'll be able to continue to grow NII. And the securities-based lending, for example, which are fully collateralized with securities that reprice daily, they've grown 21% year-over-year in our fiscal '25 year, 21%. And that was just with the early cuts in the rates, and our pipelines for those are still very strong. So we are optimistic that those balances will continue to grow. Our mortgage balances continue to grow as well because, again, our mortgages -- our clients are not the same clients that traditional banks are dealing with. They're, on average, higher net worth clients that are going to be a little less sensitive to every basis point in rate when they make home purchasing decisions or second home purchasing decisions. So we're optimistic that the bank will continue to grow its assets supporting -- driven by the support for our private client group clients going forward, especially in a more attractive rate environment.

Paul, lots of great tailwinds for the wealth management business. We're also seeing an inflection in capital markets activity. I know that that's an area where some pockets have been under earning. Maybe just speak to how you're thinking about normalizing margins and normalizing revenues in a more constructive capital markets backdrop?

Yes. Our capital markets business, the investment banking pipelines are very strong. About 60% to 65% of our M&A activity is financial sponsor-driven, either on the buy side and/or on the sell side. And if you look on the sell side, because there weren't a lot of deals done in the last 2.5 years, there are a lot of companies that are being held beyond their original target kind of holding period. And so there's motivated sellers that now want to harvest those assets. And then on the buy side, they're still raising -- there's still private equity firms out there raising a lot of capital. And so there's a lot of dry powder to deploy. And so there's motivated buyers and sellers. I think a lower rate environment will make that even more attractive for buyers to be able to finance at more attractive rates and maybe get the pricing to where sellers want the pricing so that continue to close that gap. And so our pipelines are strong in investment banking, and we're optimistic, notwithstanding some externality that we're not anticipating now with M&A and investment banking activity for fiscal 2026. And the M&A in that business, in particular, really is a big driver of margins in both directions. I think the very peak margin in capital markets was during COVID, when both the equity side and the fixed income side of the business were at record levels and no one could travel. So business development, there weren't golf tournaments or golf outings and no one was traveling. And so the margin was -- I think, 27% was the peak quarter in the capital markets business. And that was very unique in that both equities and fixed income are at record levels at the same time because they're kind of countercyclical business. And certainly, our bankers are traveling again, which is a good thing because it is a relationship business. But yes, we think that, that business can certainly be in the teens and mid-teens, but -- and even higher, like last quarter, I think it was 17% with really strong capital markets revenues across our various businesses. So again, harder to manage to a particular percentage point, but certainly, as M&A revenues pick up, that will drive margins.

And, Paul, it's certainly encouraging, too, that you reaffirmed the north of 20% pretax margin target even in the face of some rate cuts. I think that speaks to the improvement on the capital markets backdrop, certainly some of the volume tailwinds and accelerating NNA. You also talked about AI potentially driving greater efficiencies. Given you continue to scale, given -- while it does require upfront investment that should drive greater efficiency over time, is there a higher margin that you aspire to? And is there -- like over the next 5 years, do you expect that to be -- that target to potentially get raised over time, not even a commitment, but just philosophically?

Yes. We update our margins basically once a year at Analyst and Investor Day in May. So all we said was we're not changing anything in light of what happens. There's so much that happens in between our Analyst and Investor Days with the capital markets, equity markets, interest rates. If we were changing margins every time, one of the variables changed, we'd be changing margins every week. And again, we're focused on the next -- investing in the next 5 to 10 years. So we don't even love putting out margin targets for the next year, although I think we are certainly expected to from the Street, but you are. So we -- there's a lot of puts and takes in the business. Lower rates obviously hurts spread income, which has a pretty direct impact on margins and the bottom line, but it also helps lending growth. It also can help M&A. Steeper yield curve can also help fixed income. So -- we just finished our fifth consecutive year of record revenues and record earnings in very different market environments. We're not sure -- I'm not sure if you are aware of any other financial services firms that you cover that have 5 consecutive years of record revenues and earnings. I'm not putting you on the spot, so you don't have to answer it. In the last 5 years, in different interest rate environments from 0 all the way up to 5.5%, in different capital markets environments, where we had record M&A, record fixed income brokerage to very weak M&A across the industry, different equity markets. And it just shows you the power of our diverse and complementary businesses anchored by the Private Client Group business, but being able to generate 5 consecutive record results -- 5 consecutive years of record results in very different market environments, and again, I'm not aware of any other firms that have done it, maybe there are in our industry, is really kind of a testament to just keeping clients and advisers and bankers front and center in what we do and having that long-term approach where we make decisions, investment decisions. We don't try to time the markets. We always get asked about taking duration in the securities portfolio on the balance sheet. So, guys, that's nothing to do with clients. That's a sad thing about some of the firms in California that went under is they went under it because they take duration bets, it had nothing to do with clients, to try to optimize short-term earnings. That's not Raymond James. We keep clients first. We don't try to time the markets. We make decisions for the next 5 to 10 years, and that has served us very well since our inception. By the way, last quarter was also our 151st consecutive quarter of profitability. We didn't ask or take TARP money. We stood on our own 2 feet during the financial crisis. We didn't have to be converted on a Sunday afternoon to a bank holding company to survive. And we take a lot of pride in that because in a 16-year bull market, not all of those things are fully valued, right? But they are valued. We always joke, no one cares about balance sheet until everyone cares about balance sheet. And no one cares about FDIC insurance until everyone cares about FDIC insurance. And so the liberating and the great thing about our long-term approach and not trying to time the markets is that we feel like we're well positioned to thrive on a relative basis anyway in any type of market environment. And that's not fully valued in a 16-year bull market sometimes, but it certainly is when things get a little tougher.

That's well said, and also, really glad I skipped over the balance sheet strategy and duration question. I did want to press you, Paul, just on your outlook for M&A and your appetite to actually pursue more transformative M&A. You've done a couple of tuck-in deals. I think the last one you had done was Greensledge. At the same time, we have this great scatter plot that shows capital ratios across different measures, Tier 1 leverage, Tier 1 capital, risk-based capital. You're always the clear positive outlier up into the right quadrant. So I wanted to gauge, like as you think about managing that excess capital, your appetite to pursue transformative deals, and across which businesses does that make the most sense?

Yes. We have a very strong capital position. And even our targets almost make us the strongest, I think, in the scatter plot. We're $2.5 billion of excess capital over our targets. And so -- and we have plenty of financing capacity to do transactions larger than that. So we are focused on M&A. We are focused on looking for opportunities that are a good cultural fit, good strategic fit. And the financials have to make sense for both us and the sellers and our respective shareholders. And so -- but we are leaning into opportunities. I'm spending a lot of my time personally meeting with potential opportunities. But again, it has to meet the 3 criteria. And we're not going to do a deal just to do a deal. We're going to be patient. And the best opportunities for us are ones where the sellers see the long-term opportunity, just like the recruiting story I told you, where the sellers see the best opportunity for their teams and their clients to be with Raymond James, and they could see this being their home forever. And those are the best opportunities for us. So some of the flip transactions that you see that -- where they're not focused on the long-term home for their advisers or their clients, those aren't -- and they're -- all they're looking for is the biggest upfront check, that's not the best fit for us. So it's -- our acquisition strategy is almost exactly the same as our organic growth strategy. And so -- and then we want to be the longest-term home -- the best long-term home for the firms that we're looking to acquire, where they make us better, and we make them better. Our Morgan Keegan acquisition in 2012, our fixed income business is still run by the Morgan Keegan leadership team. The CEO of Morgan Keegan, John Carson, just retired last year. He was -- he retired 3 years or 2 years ago, retired as our President of the company. And so when we do acquisitions, we don't slash and burn. We keep the leadership team. We try to keep the leadership team. We try to keep the people. We try to keep the clients. And that's a very unique approach in our industry right now, increasingly unique in our industry right now.

Paul, maybe in the last minute here, just given your focus on long-term opportunities and orientation, and that also informs your investment approach. As you look out over the next 5 years, what does success look like for you? What are you hoping to achieve?

I hope that 5 years from now, when I'm visiting the country, advisers and bankers across the country, they're still saying the best decision they ever made was joining Raymond James and the biggest regret they have is they didn't join 5 years earlier. So if I hear that 5 years from now, as I'm hearing today, then I know our leadership team and our associates have been successful.

With the NNA to match.

Yes.

Paul, thanks so much for being here.

All right. Thanks so much.