Investors Capital executives and advisors say they are well positioned for growth, the main theme of the broker-dealer's 13th annual convention held in Boston in August.
About 550 of the firm's 700-plus registered representatives attended the gathering to hear keynote speaker Dennis Connor and other industry experts. They also networked, brainstormed and benefitted from a series of professional development workshops.
By cost cutting, the firm has been able to preserve and protect capital, says Investors Capital Corporation CEO and President Tim Murphy.
The firm's parent company, Investors Capital Holdings, posted net income of $0.05 million for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2009, vs. a net loss of $0.27 million for the comparative quarter ended June 30, 2008.
"Through prudent, effective cost-cutting, we managed to generate a profit in a market where our total revenues declined over 18 percent, while continuing to provide our advisors with premier service," explains Murphy.
"The opportunity we see is in the recruiting of more high-quality advisors," says Murphy, "as other firms find themselves in trouble and in turmoil."
Its existing financial advisors are a good source of recruiting prospects. "Today, we are really focused on the quality of advisors that come on board, in terms of their clients, assets under management and revenue base," he says.
"We see opportunity that we've never seen before and expect to continue to see it for the next few years. We are engaged in aggressive marketing for recruiting so that we can get in front of prospects and advisors to tell our story," he explains.
This activity is going well beyond exploratory conversations with prospects, Murphy says. And such discussions involve many advisors who have yearly sales and commissions of $250,000 and up.
