Mindy Diamond Quoted
By Lee Conrad
OWS: When Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch announced cutbacks to recruiting efforts, they did it ostensibly so they could focus on their existing advisors. But they’re not doing a great job of retention either because now advisors are leaving hand-over-fist, mostly for the regionals. What happened?
DIAMOND: The big firms are saying, ‘We want franchise players,’ but they’ve yet to really define what a franchise player is. The bottom line is, they’re open for business, but they’re not successful. This was a reason plenty of advisors looked at independence. In a perfect world, why wouldn’t they want that? They could get more freedom, build equity and have flexibility. But then, the short-term economics were on the side of the wirehouses, not so much because people preferred it, but just because the deals are big enough.
