Ameriprise Beats Q3 Estimates, Posts Strong Wealth Results

The number of employee advisors stands at 2,100 — a drop of 15 from the prior quarter and 135 from Sept. 30, 2013. It has 7,596 franchisee reps, which is up 19 from Q2'14 and up 70 from Q3'13.

Its quarterly retention level for employee reps is 91.9% as of Sept. 30 and 94.6% for franchisee advisors. The firm says it recruited 81 veteran advisors in the most-recent period.

Ameriprise says advisor client assets have increased 11% year over year to $434 billion and wrap assets improved 17% over the past 12 months to $169 billion. Wrap net inflows in the third quarter were $3.8 billion, an improvement for roughly $3 billion in Q2'14 and Q3'13.

Advisor fees and commissions, on a trailing 12-month basis, grew 13% year over year and 3% from the prior quarter to $483,000, excluding results from the firm's former banking operations.

At LPL Financial (LPLA), for instance, the average yearly production level as of June 30 was $251,000 per rep. Merrill Lynch (BAC) and UBS (UBS), however, say their average FA fees & commissions (as of Sept. 30) are just under $1.08 million per annum.