Author: michaelkingdev

Biggest recruiting moves of the year: Are wirehouses losing their edge?

The industry’s biggest teams are leaving the biggest firms.

Eight of the 12 largest recruiting moves — those involving a billion or more in client assets — went to non-wirehouse firms in the first six months of this year. Among the winners were William Blair, RBC and Dynasty Financial Partners.

Among the wirehouses, UBS both lost and won three big teams. That exchange included the industry’s biggest move to date, a $10 billion group that exited Merrill Lynch.

“A lot of advisors want to get to a smaller environment where they feel they will get more support and more recognition,” says Michael King, a recruiter based in New York.

King adds it helps that firms such as RBC and First Republic offer advisors competitive recruiting deals.

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Wells Fargo recruiting surges, picks off advisors from UBS and Morgan Stanley

Wells Fargo is on a recruiting hot streak.

In the past four weeks, the firm has plucked more than a dozen advisors from rivals UBS and Morgan Stanley. They managed more than $1 billion in combined client assets, a spokeswoman confirms.

The new recruits are doing their part to help offset the advisor attrition the firm has experienced in recent years.

Advisor headcount stood at 13,450 for the first quarter, down approximately 1,500 advisors since the third quarter of 2016 when Wells Fargo’s banking scandals first came to light.

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Retire or move: What’s an aging advisor to do?

A Wall Street sign is displayed in front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Friday, Nov. 11, 2016. U.S. stocks fluctuated in whipsaw trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average spinning near a record, as investors speculate how Donald Trump's policies will impact the economy and interest rates. Small caps headed for the best weekly gain in five years. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

After recent changes to retirement deals, particularly by Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch, some advisors may find themselves with a dilemma: Do I take the amount offered (up to 275% in some cases) or do I go to a new firm, get a transition package and then retire?

It’s no idle question for scores of advisors. According to a recent Cerulli Associates report, the average age of financial advisors in the U.S. was 52 at the end of 2017. Over the next decade, more than a third of all advisors are expected to retire, Cerulli says.

So, if you stay at your current firm, then you may — depending on your production, length of service and assets — get a lot of money for basically doing nothing. Of course, the backend payments may be contingent upon most of your assets staying with the inheriting FA. You generally will also need to sign a non-compete so you can’t join a competitive firm upon retiring.

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