[quote=tdude] folks…doesnt really matter anymore…we work for Obama…I love the universal bank model. [/quote]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

  OMG, This is criminal!!

[quote=maddog]

tdude,

So...you think they will cut branch support? or, do you think they will cut actual branches?

[/quote]
They've been going through our region in the last few months slashing support staff.  My manager is battling w/ our regional right now to save our support - a battle that I think he is going to lose.  It's funny, I go through the Gateway program and one of the first things they have me do is to calculate my worth/hour.  Even a $500K producer bills out at $270/hour to the client, and about $110/ hour to himself (gross v/s net).  However, it seems to make sense to the great bank in the sky to have that producer doing paperwork and service requests himself instead of spending $20/hour for an assistant to do it.  Let's see, $270 v/s $20.  That looks like we are losing about $250/hour for every form that guy fills out.  These people sure know alot about math.

[quote=CommonSense]

[quote=maddog]

tdude,

So...you think they will cut branch support? or, do you think they will cut actual branches?

[/quote]
   However, it seems to make sense to the great bank in the sky to have that producer doing paperwork and service requests himself instead of spending $20/hour for an assistant to do it. 
[/quote]

Come on now. How lone does it take for an assistant to do a Service request, 30 sec-a minute? How many do they do in a day, 10-15? OK a max of 15 minutes. Believe me assistants are not overworked in this market. An assistant should be able to handle 1-1.2 million and yes all firms are letting staff go.

Gordon Gekko:

Stifel office in CLT has been opened a week and already has landed the biggest producers from Legacy AGE. I would say the grass is greener there.

  CLT?

Gaddock:

[quote=Redpen][quote=Hydeho][quote=Blue2]But the 8 billion diddn’t come from WachSic.

  No they had a buyer on the other side and WacSec took the loss vs earnings. Thats why they had a 4th qt loss.[/quote] Any idea what the loss was, because I get tired of heering WS management trying to convince me that without thier help AGE would have gone under. How big was the haircut ?[/quote]   Yeah I heard that BS too AND it's just that ... BS.  All the other firms had the same issues and they are here as well. It seems to me most things that come from WS are some kind of spin for the kool aid drinkers. If Bagby hadn't sold us out for his own cheap little gain we would be the last of the breed and on steroids![/quote] You are I are on the same page. Don't tell me to go f__k myself.

[quote=Poboy] I’m a Legacy AGE guy that thought it was time to speak out about what I have been seeing with some of my colleagues and what has been written on this forum in regards to the AGE to Wach Merger. We certainly have a lot to be frustrated with over the last year. Not least of all this crappy market we have been going through.

My underlying thought is this: Change happens and it is not easy to make changes in the way we do business i.e. Smart Station, contact management/ no brokervision. But weren’t we compensated to sit in out chairs and deal with some BS? Didn’t we all have realistic expectations about what a conversion would mean? Did we think smart station actually had Broker Vision and they forgot to tell us about it when the conversion took place? Quit whining and do your damn job!



I guess I wanted to put another POV out there from a Legacy AGE. I think Smart Station is better than Client One. I never used BV except for the notes. I used Outlook for appts and meetings. Most of my AGE couterpartsthat I knew about did the same. So why is everyone complaining about the contact management? You can still do thes functions now. Hell, we now even print out an envelope with the clients name on it! Quit your whining! Some of the tools on SS are way ahead of what we had at AGE. The Portfolio Insight tool presents a much better report than Ontrack. Adding NH accounts and making proposals are much more impressive then what we had. The fee based platform and using custom choice models are much more user friendly. I have done a couple envision reports and my clients love them. It wasn’t easy to learn how to do them but I have been working every night to work to learn the system. Envision is light years ahead of OTPP. The bad part, is you need to learn how to use them, but wasn’t this why we got paid to stay???



I like how my clients with 250k don’t have to pay an IRA fee or any acct fees. I like that I have a more complete choice of mutual funds and am closer to a true open architecture than AGE. I like that after I pay my fixed cost each month I keep 50% of any business I do. I like the ability of breaking down my business on FA Analysis. Nothing like this at AGE. We can finaly analyze our business. I like the increase in SMA’s and the abilty to discount my fee based business without getting scalped. Hell, I even think the format of the new statement is better! I like I like how my clients can make deposits to there accounts at any bank or ATM. I like the improvement in functionality of the remote access. Call me nuts but the service request makes life easier once you figure it out. Service at the home office is not as good as it use to be. But I also thought there was a general decline even before wach came into the picture. What I can tell is that most of the home office people are trying hard. I just had an occasion where the person I talked to did not have an answer for my question. It was the end of the day and I was not expecting a callback. First thing the next morning someone from the department called me back and walked me through the process on Smart Station. I have every confidence service will get better.



If you were Legacy AGE and left Wach, please acccept my Best Wishes. It is rather pathetic to be spending so much time “selling” your decision to everyone else. I also did my due dilligence when we were first bought. Danny L. has made some mistakes and certainly screwed the pooch in regards to retention. But as a Legacy AGE, I never did think we were particulary entitled to anything. We had just been paid to sit in our seats and although it was shtty to go through Wachovia to Wells for our clients sake, moving to Wells will not create a disturbance to our business like learning smart station and having our clients get new checks from a now dead bank. I must admit that sucked!



We have had one broker leave our office about 3 months ago. He has taken about 40% of his book and hardly any of his clients are leaving anymore. We have not tried hard to retain his clients. I would imagine he is saying how awful Wach/Wells is to all his old clients trying to get them to come with him. Apparently they don’t give as big a sht as we may think. I think he overestimated his relationships. He actually sent an email out to his clients saying that Wachovia Securities brokers were “slapped in the face” when we didnt get retention and that was one of the reasons he left was beacuse he “knew” we would not get retention. None of his clients seemed to be concerened about us not getting a retention.



In sumamary. Change sucks. Get on with it or get going. Please stop your whining like little Bit&%es



My apologies to any Legacy Wach. Not all us AGE are asses. [/quote]





OR…



im too much of a scared pussy to move…



so i put tons of lipstick on this pig

Redpen:

[quote=Gaddock][quote=Redpen][quote=Hydeho][quote=Blue2]But the 8 billion diddn’t come from WachSic.

  No they had a buyer on the other side and WacSec took the loss vs earnings. Thats why they had a 4th qt loss.[/quote] Any idea what the loss was, because I get tired of heering WS management trying to convince me that without thier help AGE would have gone under. How big was the haircut ?[/quote]   Yeah I heard that BS too AND it's just that ... BS.  All the other firms had the same issues and they are here as well. It seems to me most things that come from WS are some kind of spin for the kool aid drinkers. If Bagby hadn't sold us out for his own cheap little gain we would be the last of the breed and on steroids![/quote] You are I are on the same page. Don't tell me to go f__k myself.[/quote]   Put it all aside. Can someone answer this. The loss would not have been a total loss of 4.5 billion at AGE. It would have maybe been a hair cut of 10%...but that would have been it. Many regional firms like RJ and Crowell Weedon and Wedbush have sat tight and managed the crisis to a much smaller number. We ahve bigger problems than this

[quote=S&P low 666] [quote=Poboy] I’m a Legacy AGE guy that thought it was time to speak out about what I have been seeing with some of my colleagues and what has been written on this forum in regards to the AGE to Wach Merger.  We certainly have a lot to be frustrated with over the last year.  Not least of all this crappy market we have been going through.

 

My underlying thought is this: Change happens and it is not easy to make changes in the way we do business i.e. Smart Station, contact management/ no brokervision.  But weren’t we compensated to sit in out chairs and deal with some BS?   Didn’t we all have realistic expectations about what a conversion would mean?  Did we think smart station actually had Broker Vision and they forgot to tell us about it when the conversion took place?  Quit whining and do your damn job!

 

I guess I wanted to put another POV out there from a Legacy AGE.  I think Smart Station is better than Client One.  I never used BV except for the notes.  I used Outlook for appts and meetings.  Most of my AGE couterpartsthat I knew about did the same.  So why is everyone complaining about the contact management?  You can still do thes functions now.  Hell, we now even print out an envelope with the clients name on it!  Quit your whining!  Some of the tools on SS are way ahead of what we had at AGE.  The Portfolio Insight tool presents a much better report than Ontrack.  Adding NH accounts and making proposals are much more impressive then what we had. The fee based platform and using custom choice models are much more user friendly.  I have done a couple envision reports and my clients love them.  It wasn’t easy to learn how to do them but I have been working every night to work to learn the system.  Envision is light years ahead of OTPP.  The bad part, is you need to learn how to use them, but wasn’t this why we got paid to stay???

 

I like how my clients with 250k don’t have to pay an IRA fee or any acct fees. I like that I have a more complete choice of mutual funds and am closer to a true open architecture than AGE.  I like that after I pay my fixed cost each month I keep 50% of any business I do.  I like the ability of breaking down my business on FA Analysis.  Nothing like this at AGE.  We can finaly analyze our business.  I like the increase in SMA’s and the abilty to discount my fee based business without getting scalped.  Hell,  I even think the format of the new statement is better!  I like I like how my clients can make deposits to there accounts at any bank or ATM.  I like the improvement in functionality of the remote access.  Call me nuts but the service request makes life easier once you figure it out.  Service at the home office is not as good as it use to be.  But I also thought there was a general decline even before wach came into the picture.  What I can tell is that most of the home office people are trying hard.  I just had an occasion where the person I talked to did not have an answer for my question.  It was the end of the day and I was not expecting a callback.  First thing the next morning someone from the department called me back and walked me through the process on Smart Station.  I have every confidence service will get better.

 

If you were Legacy AGE and left Wach, please acccept my Best Wishes.  It is rather pathetic to be spending so much time “selling” your decision to everyone else.  I also did my due dilligence when we were first bought.  Danny L. has made some mistakes and certainly screwed the pooch in regards to retention.  But as a Legacy AGE, I never did think we were particulary entitled to anything.  We had just been paid to sit in our seats and although it was shtty to go through Wachovia to Wells for our clients sake, moving to Wells will not create a disturbance to our business like learning smart station and having our clients get new checks from a now dead bank.  I must admit that sucked!

 

We have had one broker leave our office about 3 months ago.  He has taken about 40% of his book and hardly any of his clients are leaving anymore.  We have not tried hard to retain his clients.  I would imagine he is saying how awful Wach/Wells is to all his old clients trying to get them to come with him.  Apparently they don’t give as big a sht as we may think.  I think he overestimated his relationships.  He actually sent an email out to his clients saying that Wachovia Securities brokers were “slapped in the face” when we didnt get retention and that was one of the reasons he left was beacuse he “knew” we would not get retention.  None of his clients seemed to be concerened about us not getting a retention.

 

In sumamary. Change sucks.  Get on with it or get going.  Please stop your whining like little Bit&%es

 

My apologies to any Legacy Wach.  Not all us AGE are asses. [/quote]





OR…



im too much of a scared pussy to move…



so i put tons of lipstick on this pig[/quote]

Yep got to be a dumb ASS to be happy at WS. Much easier to be whine and bitch. No sense in trying to give some feedback and attempt to make things better. No easier to bitch and whine, that takes almost no effort at all.

sarcasm off