Howard Diamond Quoted
By John Aidan Byrne
Morgan Stanley has locked the gates to keep its high-priced wealth management brokers from fleeing.
The new edict — breaking with a 13-year-old agreement known as the Protocol for Broker Recruiting — enacted on Nov. 3 means the bank will threaten wealth management pros with costly litigation if they bolt for a rival brokerage.
“Recruiting advisers for the wirehouses used to be 98 percent of my business — and now it’s a much, much smaller percentage of my practice,” said Howard Diamond, managing director at industry recruiter Diamond Consultants. “For many advisers, joining a smaller independent firm is the real deal.”