January 12, 2024
Jason Diamond Quoted
By Nathan Place
“I certainly expect the wealth management unit to stabilize going forward, but it’s no secret that they’ve struggled with that,” said Jason Diamond, a vice president at the financial advisor recruiting firm Diamond Consultants. “They’re still continuing to lose some advisors, and are probably not quite where they want to be in terms of hitting recruiting goals to replace those assets that are walking out the door.”
Wells Fargo has faced a number of damaging scandals in recent years. In 2016, regulators found that the bank had opened millions of unauthorized accounts in its customers’ names, for which it was fined hundreds of millions of dollars. More recently, the SEC accused Wells Fargo of overcharging thousands of wealth management customers from 2002 to 2022; the firm paid a total of $75 million to settle the case this year.
All of this, Diamond said, has hurt the firm’s ability to lure in new advisors.
“For a while they couldn’t escape the negative headlines,” Diamond said. “I think that combined with the usual wirehouse complaints — of bureaucracy and big bank [issues] — made it a difficult story to tell.”
