Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Lisa Shidler, RIABiz – If you’re trying to build a giant RIA to $100 billion in assets, you won’t get there if you give up easily. Focus Financial founder and chief executive Rudy Adolf, for instance, spent seven years trying to convince Colleen Lindstrom, CEO of Merriman Inc., to sell her $1.5 billion firm to his company.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Joyce Hanson, Think Advisor – A team of Baltimore-based financial advisors with $200 million in assets under management and $2 million in annual production has jumped ship from Wells Fargo to join Raymond James’ independent broker-dealer channel, Raymond James announced.
By Mindy Diamond, WealthManagement.com – Marriage is a serious commitment between two people who enter into the union with all the best of intentions to stay together forever. Unfortunately, statistics show that almost half of marriages will end in divorce. In the same way, advisor partnerships are not immune to divorce.
Howard Diamond Quoted – By John Aidan Byrne, New York Post – Wall Street has had its fill with the Type-A risk takers who can cost a firm billions after they have made their millions and moved on. The hiring focus now is on the back-office compliance staff to rein in the risk takers. But the Street also can’t find enough rock-star talent to advise America’s wealthiest individuals.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Patrick Graham, The Wall Street Journal – Dynasty Financial Partners, HighTower Advisors and Focus Financial Partners–three of the highest profile destinations for brokers who break away from the biggest retail wirehouses–are ready to mark 2012 as one of their best recruiting years in their short histories, reports Wealth Management at WSJ.com. So what’s behind this momentum? Three factors are in play, industry observers and recruiters say. First, technology advancements have allowed the firms to shrink the gap between themselves and the big brokerages. Also, the broker workforce today is less loyal given the many industry mergers and acquisitions during the past few years. Lastly, the firms have bolstered their credibility by simply poaching top talent. Putting all of this in perspective, top recruiting consultant Mindy Diamond notes that the firms have managed in very short order to develop a model to allow advisers to go independent–and thrive. “Since these firms’ inceptions, they’ve had a powerful impact on the industry,” she says.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Kevin Noblet, The Wall Street Journal – Recruiter Mindy Diamond believes that, when it comes to their careers, some women advisers are just too trusting and others fail to set their own expectations high enough, Financial Planning says. Speaking at a women advisers’ conference in Boston, Ms.Diamond also listed failing to have a clear succession plan as a mistake some make. Men, of course, commonly do that, too.
Barbara Herman Quoted – By Susan Konig, WealthManagement.com – An informal survey of branch office managers across advisory channels finds one consistency in their wishes for a new year: Fair compensation.
By Mindy Diamond, WealthManagment.com – FINRA is once again putting the topic of broker recruitment packages on the table. According to a notice the regulatory organization posted to its site yesterday, next month’s Board meeting will include consideration of a rule change that would require brokers to disclose details of their recruitment compensation packages to their clients if they were to move from one firm to another.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Brooke Southall, RIABiz – FINRA is set to consider new rules that would lift the curtain on the terms and conditions of massive payoffs made by wirehouses to convince brokers to make a lateral move from another wirehouse.
By Mindy Diamond, WealthManagement.com – All advisors get frustrated with their firms at times and consider jumping ship, but only 22% on average actually change organizations in any given year. Yet restlessness seems to be on the rise. 29% of advisers at national wirehouses said they were considering leaving their firms in the coming year compared to 25% the year before, according to a study by Cogent Research.
