Wendy Leung Quoted – By Jameson Berkow, The Globe and Mail – The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a wave of succession planning among financial advisors that some experts believe could become the largest transition the industry has ever seen.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Miriam Rozen, Financial Advisor IQ – Don’t expect other wirehouses to match Merrill Lynch’s recently-sweetened payouts for retiring advisors, because Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and UBS had taken steps previously to retain senior talent. In addition, precise comparisons of the various incentives the wirehouses offer are difficult for FAs to make, say recruiters. Mindy Diamond, longtime industry recruiter and president and CEO of Diamond Consultants, suggests Merrill Lynch’s new plan may have disappointed some of its FAs.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Alana Pipe, FundFire – More than a third of financial advisors are expected to retire in the next 10 years, which will result in an estimated $7.8 trillion in assets changing hands, according to a recent report from Cerulli Associates. In anticipation of this retirement boom, wealth management industry firms are scrambling to ensure the smooth transfer of clients to the next generation of advisors while keeping assets in house. For younger advisors, building a business at a wirehouse like this comes at a price, says Louis Diamond, executive v.p. and senior consultant of Diamond Consultants, a recruiting firm.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Mrinalini Krishna, Financial Advisor IQ – Merrill Lynch has added a big sweetener to payouts for advisors on the brink of retirement by tweaking its Client Transition Program (CTP). The wirehouse announced Wednesday an increase in its award payouts to retiring advisors for all production levels. The award has increased by five percentage points for the lower-production tiers while the top producers ($7.5 million or more) could see their payout jump by a whopping 75 percentage points to a maximum of 275% of their trailing-12 month production.
In this special podcast episode, Vince Fertitta, breakaway Merrill executive who is now President of Sanctuary Wealth, joins the show to discuss the Merrill Lynch enhanced CTP and what it means for all Merrill advisors going forward.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Jed Horowitz and Mason Braswell, AdvisorHub – Merrill Lynch Wealth Management unveiled long-anticipated changes to its account-transition program for retiring brokers on Wednesday, adding five to 75 percentage points to the payouts brokers can receive over five to seven years after selling their “books” to colleagues.
By Deborah Aronson – Consider this: You’re the senior most advisor on a multi-generational team managing nearly a billion in assets at a firm you’ve been with for three decades. Over the years, you’ve assembled a stellar group of seasoned, mid-career advisors, as well as several more junior partners. And it’s a great team—clients consistently acknowledge the high level of service they receive.
Mindy Diamond Quoted – By Mrinalini Krishna, Financial Advisor IQ – Sunset agreements are a fast-growing technique the industry is using to help solve its looming advisor retirement problem. But are these contracts setting up the next generation of advisors for failure?