Joel Marks is in a race to get big before he gets crushed. Marks, vice chairman and COO of independent broker/dealer Advanced Equities in Atlanta, more than tripled the size of his independent advisor force with two acquisitions in the past year...

Morgan Stanley made several key additions last month. On the advisor front, Barney Greengrass joined the firm's New York City office from Smith Barney; David Napolitano left Wachovia to join the Paramus, N.J., branch; and the team of Elizabeth...

There's an old saw in business that says the success of a company depends not on size but on filling a void in the marketplace. A small 24-hour convenience store can't compete with Safeway or K-Mart, but then Safeway and K-mart can't compete with...

In March 2000, at roughly the peak of the stock market boom, the folks at American Express Financial Advisors felt expansive. The Minneapolis-based subsidiary of American Express announced it wanted to nearly double its advisor ranks to 20,000...

Lehman Brothers hired Holly Isdale as managing director and head of strategic wealth services within its private client group. She focuses on providing wealth services to ultra-high-net-worth clients, foundations and endowments, and reports to...

A recent Fidelity Investments survey says clients still find portfolio performance to be the most important aspect of the client-advisor relationship. What can advisors do about this?

Stan Sargent, a manager at Prudential, has left to join Merrill Lynch in Merrill's Orlando branch. Sargent, who worked at Prudential for five years, started at Merrill Lynch in mid-May. He had previously worked at Merrill Lynch from 1983 to 1995...