raymond james financial is aiming to boost its market share of very wealthy clients the st petersburg flabased company has launched a new internal advisor designation program that will provide additional training and education on serving the needs of highnetworth and ultrahighnetworth clients wealth management firms have been doubling down on wealthy clients providing them with loans mortgages estate planning and other services it’s part of an effort to serve a broad range of customers’ financial needs it’s also proven to be particularly profitable lending to wealthy clients has boosted revenue at wealth management firms such as morgan stanley and ubs raymond james has the capabilities to serve wealthy clients but the new private wealth advisor program will help advisors better match the firm’s resources with client needs says scott curtis president of raymond james’ private client group the firm defines highnetworth clients as those with more than 2 million in investible assets “we’re not trying to turn them into estateandtrusts experts” curtis says “but we’re getting them to the point where they can identify where the opportunities exist with their clients and bring in the specialists where needed” the program’s curriculum mirrors that of the certified private wealth advisor designation offered by the investments and wealth institute but differs in that it focuses on raymond james capabilities curtis says “if they do this program and then want to do the cpwa they’ll be in a much better position to do that” he says the program consists of virtual and inperson sessions according to raymond james it’s overseen by andrea beyer director of private wealth coaching who joined raymond james from wells fargo advisors earlier this year the first cohort to go through the program consisted of about 50 advisors who have been providing the firm with feedback on the curriculum according to curtis the program concludes with an inperson test based on case studies in addition the company has added more estate and tax planning experts and private wealth consultants who assist advisors with technical advice and analysis for highnetworth clients raymond james has approximately 8600 financial advisors and operates both independent and employee brokerdealers the firm had total client assets of 119 trillion as of aug 24