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Articles Written by Jon Henschen

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5 Compliance Approaches That Chase Away Advisor Talent

17:48 01 May in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

April 26, 2017 By Jon Henschen, as featured on ThinkAdvisor   Several months ago, I took my wife’s car out on an errand and noticed the front driver side panel protruding out at the seam. I didn’t notice any dents or scratches so I simply pressed the panel back in place. Investigating further, taking a walk around the front of the car and then to the passenger side, I saw scratches and a large dent. It turned out that our teenage daughter had driven into a mailbox as she swerved the car off the road reaching down to the floor to grab a CD to play. There was no mention of the incident until we brought it up, as is so often the case with teenagers, who are at a phase of life...

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BD Back-Office Consolidation: Profit Bonanza or Service Boondoggle?

17:45 23 February in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

February 22, 2017 By Jon Henschen as published on ThinkAdvisor Even before the Labor Dept. fiduciary rule has been implemented and now likely delayed for 18 months, broker-dealers are making business changes due to lower revenue and higher expenses. One broker-dealer recently laid off employees due to a major slowdown in variable annuity revenue while another BD with a strong focus on alternative investments and REITs announced that 2017 would be break-even after years of consistent profitability; we see many broker-dealers raising costs or adding profit centers to help fill in the void. For multiple broker-dealers operating under a single owner, the temptation to cut costs by consolidating back-office services is nothing new but with the added expenses and revenue decline of DOL rules, consolidation projects appear to be hitting fever pitch (see Fighting the Big Profit Squeeze). Below we...

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Congress Got Schooled Once by a BD Owner; It Should Again

22:58 02 January in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

December 20, 2016 By Jon Henschen as published on ThinkAdvisor I must start this article by confessing that I’m not only a YouTube fan, but also the nerdy type that watches speech footage from the likes of economists Milton Friedman as well as various financial services thought leaders. Recently, I watched a broker-dealer owner give testimony to Congress. Listening to his testimony compelled me to feature his opening comments as the centerpiece of this article for two reasons. First, the content of his testimony was an onion of truth bombs. Second, his testimony reflected many of the thoughts and concerns that broker-dealer owners discuss in private but are afraid to say in public for fear of regulatory backlash. The speaker, Peter Schiff, is the owner of the BD Euro Pacific, Inc., which is a full service...