After spending 28 years working at wirehouses, Glenn Fischer said he was ready for a change, but he certainly didn’t want to change everything. What’s more, he wanted to be bigger than everyone else in the independent channel.

Enter New York Wealth Management, a new advisory firm affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services Inc., that Fischer—a former Smith Barney branch manager—just opened last week in Garden City, N.Y.

Fischer and three other financial advisors are catering to wealthy individuals. Fischer said he hopes to eventually attract more than 20 financial advisors that are also tired of the “red tape at the wirehouses."

Though it opened with approximately $200 million in client assets, Fischer said he expects this to become, eventually, one of Raymond James’ largest offices. “We want to be a multi-billion dollar firm and we expect to be there in a couple years,” he said. “We have a great pipeline of advisors that are interested in joining us. We want to be choosy in how we hire.”

Fischer was a branch manager for Smith Barney for 23 years until January. After Citigroup merged its Smith Barney unit with Morgan Stanley to create Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, many veteran advisors began to be squeezed out. But, Fischer continued to work for the merged entity as an advisor until September when he left to begin assembling his own advisory firm.

“After working at the wirehouses for my entire career, I thought that there must be a better way to do business,” he said. “The wirehouse environment provides a lot of products, services and resources that are difficult for the independent business model to compete with, but by working with Raymond James I am hoping to find a happy medium and be able to provide the best of both worlds.”

Raymond James Financial Services is an independent advisory firm with more than 3,300 independent advisors in 2,000 offices nationally.

Fischer’s new office has four advisors, including Fischer and two other former Smith Barney advisors—Joseph Scotto, a 26-year veteran, and Vincent Lopes. The fourth advisor is from UBS, Patrick Adams, who had more than 20 years of experience.

“I expect a lot more folks are going to follow from the wirehouses that are interested in going independent,” Fischer said. “The wirehouse isn’t everything it is cut out to be. You are expected to manage a lot of things other than clients. Right now, everyone is ringing my phone.”

But, the transition from a wirehouse to an independent channel can be difficult because often advisors have a difficult time balancing developing their practice and managing the business, Fischer said.

Analysts said New York Wealth Management would face stiff competition in the New York area from an array of established wealth management providers. Geoffrey Bobroff of Bobroff Consulting in East Greenwich, R.I. said: “Transitioning to an independent model isn’t as easy or as lucrative as wirehouse managers seem to think.”

Not only is it “always a challenge when you are setting up a new firm,” Bobroff said, “New York has to be one of the most over marketed populations that exists in the United States.” Furthermore, Bobroff said: “It is a going to be a challenge to become a multi-billion firm unless advisors have strong and committed books of business that they are bringing with them.”

For wealthy individuals, Bobroff said Raymond James lacks the name recognition that large wirehouses, like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, still hold. “The biggest challenge from a relationship standpoint is how important the marquis name is for customers,” he said. “I am not saying that Morgan Stanley is a stronger firm than Raymond James, but in the northeast it isn’t that well known. It is still thought of as a Florida company and doesn’t have the same name recognition in New York still.”

As far as competing in the New York market, Fischer dismissed it. “I don’t think we have competition in this model,” he said. “There are other independents out there, certainly, but we are opening an elite office and attracting top advisors. Our biggest competition is going to be the wirehouses. We plan to provide services to our advisors that are unlike what you would find at the typical independent advisor.”