In the final months of 2012, the wirehouse firms continued to recruit advisors from each other and from other broker-dealers. At the same time, some national and independent firms shared news about their recruiting success stories.
Wells Fargo, for instance, said in mid-November that it had recruited 24 advisors with $2.2 billion in assets this fall for its traditional Private Client Group channel; the new reps came from Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS and several other firms. Its independent-advisor channel, FiNet, said it added seven advisors with about $1.3 billion in assets in November.
One group coming on board Wells Fargo's employee advisor channel over the past few months is the ESH Group, which includes Robert Evans, Walt Shinault and Richard Hastings in Oxford, Miss. They joined from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. The team has a total of 76 years of industry experience and prior client assets of $250 million.
The independent-advisor channel of Wells Fargo picked up the KBT Group in Westlake Village, Calif., comprised of financial advisors Michael Kazmer, Larry Bernstein and Abby Dinkins. The team joined FiNET from Merrill Lynch with about $620 million in assets.
Morgan Stanley said one of its recent recruits was Bryan Schon in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., formerly with Chase Investment Services. The advisor has produced close to $1.5 million in yearly fees and commissions and has managed about $205 million in client assets.
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said it added a team led by former-Morgan Stanley advisor Rebecca Rothstein to its Private Banking and Investments Group office in Beverly Hills, Calif. The team includes five advisors and six other staff members. It manages about $2.5 billion in client assets.
Raymond James also recruited an ex-Morgan Stanley broker over the past few weeks: John N. Dorsey, who previously managed about $215 million in client assets and had more than $800,000 in yearly fees and commissions. He is now a senior vice president of investments and branch manager of a new Huntington, W.Va.-based branch office of Raymond James & Associates, the traditional employee broker-dealer..
Two weeks before this announcement, Raymond James said it recruited a Morgan Stanley team with about $80 million in assets and $1 million in yearly fees & commissions in Scottsdale, Ariz., to join RJA.
Barclays' Boost
Barclays said it recruited 18 new advisors over the past few weeks from Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase and SunTrust. The advisors now work in eight Barclays offices across the country.
They have a total of nearly $40 million in yearly production and $9.4 billion in assets under management. Thus, the reps each have an average of $2.2 million in yearly production and $522 million in average client assets under management.
"We are pleased to welcome these talented advisors to Barclays," said Mitch Cox, head of Wealth Management-Americas for Barclays, in a statement. "These hires underscore our commitment to attracting top-performing professionals who seek Barclays' unique, in-depth approach, of guiding clients to customized solutions that extend far beyond their investment portfolio."
Barclays has some 250 advisors in the United States and $287 billion in client assets worldwide in its Wealth and Investment Management division.
LPL Momentum
