With the rise of RIAs, recruiters must change their game
November 2, 2021 By Bruce Kelly, Investment News As the grip of the Big Four wirehouses — Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells Fargo Advisors — on financial advisers has lessened over the past 10 years or so, one of the main arteries for attracting new financial advisers, recruiting, has evolved as well. Twenty years ago, around the time of the dot.com stock bubble, if a reporter naively asked a third-party recruiter who worked with wirehouses whether an adviser would consider moving to an independent contractor broker-dealer like LPL Financial or Commonwealth, the recruiter would have laughed and said, “Not in a hundred years.” OK, the payout is higher at the independent firm, but where’s the lead generation? Where’s the brand? Where’s the upfront bonus? Where are the stock options? In short, where’s...