Author: rafferty

Progessive, GunnAllen March to Altar

by Bruce kelly and featured in Investment News
January, 2010:

The big unknown surrounding Progressive Asset Management Inc.’s announcement last week that it is buying GunnAllen Financial Inc. is whether the socially conscious investment firm will acquire only GunnAllen’s 700 reps and their assets or the legal entity of the independent broker-dealer.

The fine points of the Progressive/GunnAllen marriage are important because the broker-dealer carries with it a history of legal disputes with customers stemming from the activities of Frank Blue-stein, a rogue broker who allegedly steered clients to a Ponzi scheme that went bust in 2007. GunnAllen also has had recent legal problems stemming from the blowup of private placements.

“We believe [the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.] is closely watching the [merger] situation,” said Scott Silver,

An Uneasy Union

by Halah Touryalai and featured in Registered Rep
November, 2009:

When AIG was nearly wiped out last year in the mortgage crisis, Stan Bivin, an advisor at one of its independent broker/dealers, says he worried about what his clients would think. Some of his good friends, who were also top producers at AIG Financial Advisors — renamed SagePoint Financial in January — left the firm in the midst of AIG’s fall from grace. But Bivin was determined to stay and deal with the uncertainty of his firm’s future. “I’d been with the firm for over twenty years. I thought it was premature to bail and take clients and transition to another firm. We didn’t feel our clients were being hurt,” he says. Now, a year after announcing its plans to sell its three independent b/ds,

Ease of shift from Pershing platform surprises reps who stayed with LPL

by Darla Mercado and featured in Investment News
October, 2009:

Advisers once annoyed by LPL Financial’s decision to move brokers from three acquired firms off Pershing LLC’s clearing platform say they’re pleasantly surprised by how the independent broker-dealer has eased their transition.

Close to a month after LPL shifted some 1,700 advisers affiliated with Mutual Service Corp., Associated Securities Corp. and Waterstone Financial Group over to LPL’s own clearing platform, advisers who remained through the transition are saying the change really hasn’t been all that bad.

“The technology is faster and more efficient, and now I can contact people directly at LPL, whereas before, I had to go through Mutual Service Corp. and then to Pershing,” said William Hamm, president of Independent Financial Partners.