Jason Diamond Quoted by Victoria Zhuang, Financial-Planning.com – “You have to let this stuff play out,” Jason Diamond, an industry recruiter at Diamond Consultants, said in an interview about what Merrill could look like under Hans and Schimpf. “Are they going to have the autonomy to implement their own decisions? Or are they really just going to be carrying out the orders from Brian Moynihan and the bank?”
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Jeff Berman, ThinkAdvisor – Citi’s courting of Sieg seems to be a sign that it means business — meaning a major return to the U.S. wealth management business, according to Louis Diamond, president of Diamond Consultants.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Victoria Zhuang, Financial-Planning.com – Merrill Lynch will not offer a way for financial advisors to independently affiliate with the Wall Street giant, even as industry competitors open up that burgeoning business model, Merrill’s wealth management head said Thursday.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Glenn Koch, Financial Advisor IQ – Merrill Lynch has added a suite of pre-approved products to its dual-contract program that the wirehouse says will help advisors better cater to high-net-worth clients.
Jason Diamond Quoted – By Jeff Berman, ThinkAdvisor – Brokers at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management are increasingly shifting away from working on their own to becoming part of a team and just about all of them are expected to be part of a team eight years from now, according to Andy Sieg, president of the Merrill division.
By Jake Martin, AdvisorHub – Breakaway teams from Merrill Lynch, UBS Wealth Management USA and Morgan Stanley have flown their wirehouse coups in the past week for Dynasty Financial Partners and LPL Financial, according to announcements and registration records.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Alex Padalka, FinancialAdvisor IQ – James Iannazzo, who last month was charged with criminal trespass and other counts, became registered with Aegis Capital on March 15.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Jeff Berman, ThinkAdvisor – Once upon a time, the Merrill Lynch advisor training program was widely considered the “gold standard” of industry training programs. Industry recruiters interviewed by ThinkAdvisor this month were split on whether the wirehouse’s new, shorter training program will successfully meet that same standard and achieve the firm’s recently stated goal of having 1,000 trainees graduate each year once it’s reached scale.
By James Rogers, Financial Advisor IQ – The swift firing of a Merrill Lynch financial advisor over an alleged bias incident at a Connecticut smoothie store serves to remind other FAs that they work in a high-profile industry, and there are consequences to bringing bad publicity to their employer’s doorstep.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Patrick Donachie, WealthManagement.com – Merrill Lynch Wealth Management is amending its current policy governing how much payout advisors keep for retaining accounts previously under advisors who departed the firm for other companies or retired, according to a senior Merrill Lynch executive detailing changes to the company’s compensation structures in the coming year.
