In the News

Hard Time for BDs on the Block to Find Suitors

00:00 01 August in In the News by rafferty

August, 2011 by Janet Levaux and featured in AdvisorOne: While rumors persist about possible suitors for Securities America, Morgan Keegan and other broker-dealers on the market, experts say the pool of buyers has shrunk dramatically over the past few years. For advisors, the longer the sales process take, the more likely it is that advisors will leave, they add. Despite the poor market for broker dealers, the recruiter says Ladenburg Thalmann appears to be at the top of the list of potential suitors for Securities America, which has about 1,800 reps but some lingering legal issues surrounding its sale of private placements. Ladenburg Thalmann is the parent company of two independent broker-dealers: Triad Advisors in Norcross, Ga., with some 600 FAs, and Investacorp, in Miami Lakes, Fla., which has about 500 advisors. Securities America,...

2011 Broker-Dealer Presidents’ Poll

00:00 01 June in In the News by rafferty

by John Sullivan and featured in Investment Advisor & AdvisorOne June, 2011: We asked BD recruiting expert Jon Henschen for his take on the responses. What he had to say will surprise you. Investment Advisor surveyed over 70 presidents and heads of broker-dealers big and small. We asked about the regulatory environment, compliance, recruiting, and the long- and short-term challenges they face. Not content with the answers as they were, we asked broker-dealer recruiting expert Jon Henschen, president of Henschen & Associates, an advisor placement firm, for his “color commentary” on what the responses mean for the larger industry as a whole, and what advisors should be looking for from the broker-dealers with which they choose to partner. True to form, Henschen, a well-known writer and speaker known for his sometimes brutal honesty,...

Indie Winners: America’s Top Independent Brokerages

00:00 01 June in In the News by rafferty

by Diana Britton and featured in Registered Rep June, 2011: Whatever happened to the indie exodus? The storied legions of breakaway brokers that were said to be fleeing Wall Street's giant bureaucratic brokerages and heading to the promised land of independent firms where they could control their own destinies, select whatever products they wanted for their clients, and leave behind all of those knotty conflicts of interest? Yes, it is a phenomenon that has been widely debated in the financial services industry as well as in these pages. The Merrills and Morgan Stanleys of the world say it was never an exodus, the migration is over, and it was only those advisors who couldn't make it in the cutthroat wirehouse world who crossed over to the independent side of the business anyway —...