Roll Call- Who's Walking from MER
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There was a small 3 person Merrill office in my town. As of Friday, all 3 of them packed up and moved to RBC.
Yes and no. In other industries, you lose a veteran salesperson to retirement, you could lose business. In our world, those veteran books will get transitioned/sold to existing, younger advisors. So the drum keeps beating. It is self-perpetuating. Rather than maintain tons of lower producing advisors that continuously drum up "B/C" business, they would prefer to have the best continue to drum up "A" business and pass it down the line to the next advisor on their team. And those "A" clients refer more "A" clients, and centers of influence only refer "A" clients to them. If done correctly, it will continue to work, adn there will be less overhead because of fewer advisors, fewer staff, and fewer home-office support people. IOW, like clients, it's better to have 10,000 FA's producing $1mm each, than 20,000 FA's producing 500K each.We had 2 leave on Thursday 11/14… think they clicked ‘accept’?? I understand they both went to UBS. These guys were LOS < 10, doing $600 ish and $730 or so. Both were probably the top of their POA classes when they came on. ML is loosing their future if loads of these type of guys leave.
Attention All Top Producing MER advisors:
Your book will look like chop suey when they start forcing you to steer your biggest and best clients to US Trust......Just you wait and see. They will narrow your book down to the Premiere level which is $250,000 to $3M. Anything above that gets moved up.....
How do you like them Apples...you might not like them Sour Granny Smiths....
We’ve lost a few. Mostly 4th and 5th quintilers. Nobody who will be missed. And guess what? The accounts are STAYING. I’ve retained $5MM so far of inherited accounts. Not a single ACAT yet, after 2 weeks.
In other words, if you have ownership of your book you retain a 2 -3 times gross retirement asset when you are ready to hang it up.
If you are an indy producer at 80% payout and doing 500,000 k gross and mostly through trails....you have approximately a $800,000 to $1MM biz you can cash in to another advisor with a large marketplace for bidders.... If you stuck around a small bank program and got bought by a larger regional bank and then BAC or some other larger instituion you might be a passive beneficiary of all the left over assets reigning down on you from folks who said tahellwidat....but within 2 years you will be painted into a corner with comp cuts, annualized production goals, more time devoted to sending biz back to your bank or trust officers, than your own production. You will be effectively capped and stripped. Others who left and took the near term pain to rebuild at an indy platform will be in control of their future while you have lost yours. Enjoy the good fortune while it lasts, cause you are now a corporate drone.And I fogot to mention you can also grow your OWN business through acquisition and create a much larger retirement asset
Daytradah- I think ur right. Even though I’m at the top quintile, I truly think it’s only a matter of time before i get F$$ked- anyone with a brain must see what’s coming. To me it’s really a matter of “Pick Ur Pain: Now or Later”
I'm thinking the pain of transition now will be much, much less than the pain of staying a couple of years down the road. I don't want to be sitting down in 2 years with some young corporate banking drone who would like to "discuss my goals" focusing on things that "are important to the bank" Wonder why the comp plan isnt out yet?????And one other thing. My guess is that we lose about 1/3 of our FAs. We have only had a couple people leave so far, but i think our office will lose allot over the next couple months. ML management is arrogant and out of touch.
Question for those who have been around long enough to see advisors leave and take over those accounts. What percentage of those clients you retained at the firm would follow you to another firm if they did not follow their original advisor when he left? Cubfan mentioned keeping 5mm in accounts. How much of that would go with him a year down the road if he left.
I assume significantly less than 50% of the AUM. I think FAs who accumulate a lot of assets through that method become tied to their firm for that reason…although if done right, an FA can “own” those relationships over time. But definitely a whole different ballgame from developing your own.
Daytradah (terrible name, fyi) says I am a fool for staying w/o a retention package. But I did get a retention package! A six-figure up-front awaits me in a matter of a few weeks, and I didn’t have to change my office address, my phone number, my assistant or my parking space in order to get it.
ML hired me out of college when nobody else wanted to. ML trained me. ML helped me buy my first house. ML sent my wife and I on luxurious trips that we would never have been able to swing on our own. ML sent me to world-class sporting events in the best seats in the house, time and again. ML is going to give me another six-figure bonus next year as thanks for me sticking around for 10 years. And MOST of ML is still right where they were a year ago. So why would I leave? I work in one of the top 5 most productive branches in the firm and not a single first-quintile FA has left. I just don't get you guys. ML is a great, great place. I understand it's lost some of its cachet with the general public and it will take some serious time to get that back. But they've always treated me very well. Why would I leave them?[quote=iceco1d]In case you aren’t following along cubfan, the answer to your question is “Because THEY aren’t the same “THEY” anymore!”
Note: I couldn't care less what you do, or how you feel about ML. I'm just answering your question.[/quote]Exactly. ML may have helped him do all those good things, but now that they are MLBAC THEY will bend him over if he's not careful.....and honestly I hope I'm wrong.
cubfan, your stupidity amazes me. Your big miscue, and this explains the stupidity/failure of ml because their own people can’t see the forest from the trees. They and you are no longer ml! you are BAC baby and all that great money you are about to receive has as many strings attached to it as the dollar bills in it.
I hate to say it but for a guy who manages probably a whole lot of money and whose kids and wife depend on for support, you don't seem very bright as far as seeing the whole picture and looking down the line as to how things may transpire. You're not ML and never will be again, and your professional life is only going to get worse so cut the ml bullsh!t! because noone has thought very much of them for many years and you're certainly not ml anymore. sorry for the tough words, but you need to wake up out of your delusional state and start thinking and preparing for your family.hey cubfan,
THEY took the goverment money, so THEY can no longer send you on luxurious trips with your wife, THEY can not send you to outrageous sporting events, THEY can not even have a XMAS party. THEY were good. THEY can't do it any more. . THEY acted and operated like a hedge fund. THEY borrowed money and made bad investements. THEY blew up. .Even BAC can't save THEY.
SWHFTM, I agree with you. However, and this will shock you, trying to convince a broker that they are 180 degrees off base is not going to happen.
Are you looking to jump? Sounds like you have some pretty tasty offers.I want to get something straight for the record: ML FA’s who are supposed t get a retention bonus had a deadline to sign the document. They have no idea about the new comp plan (but rumor for what it is worth says it will be a pay cut). AND they just received notice that the payment will come after the deal closes? What am I missing? I have pictures from my Masters trips too, but they start to get a little dusty after a while.
cubfan:
Forget the phunny name. You days of laughing will be few and far between. Congrats that you HAD a great career at MER. You just sold your future to BAC. You will not have a book that you own. You sold your soul because it was the easy thing to do in this environment. Hunker down... see where the chips fall. The only problem is you have just given BAI your coordinates and the have a JDAM ready for you right in the crotch after you take the money. Just giving some food for thought. It will be unlike anything you can imagine. Everything you learned at MER will be sacrificed. You will be on a tread mill that will require more legwork, more incline, and less direct comp for you. The comp plan changes quarterly and atleast annually in a negative way.You will be working for someone who needs you to complete data entry so their report can be sent to the next clown who never sold anything, so they can tweak and massage the numbers, to get it up to their regional drone, who cooks the numbers for the district slob, who then completely bakes the souffle so the CEO shyts his depends over how much money you made versus the bank
Its hard to image because your frame of reference is wholly absent of any experience working in a large bank. You are entering into a world where people are seekers of security in the form of a monthly predictable paycheck. Anyone crazy enough to live off of commissions may get lucky a month or too but they will be damn if you are going to make fools of their underachievement.
They are not risk takers by definition and DNA. You will be describing the wonderful colors of the rainbow to people who see only shades of gray. They will see you as out of the norm and spoiled and overpaid.
It will all be friendly at first and then you will catch the faint smell of Lubriderm down the hall. It will then be too late when you see the bowling pin they will deliver to you. I bid you Adieu.....Did he leave twice and tell BAC to kiss it or did Freddie Mac poison any return trip to the Death Star?
McQuade to Leave B of A, a Second Time American Banker By Paul Davis December 1, 2008For the second time in four years, veteran banker Eugene McQuade is opting not to forge a career at Bank of America Corp. after it buys his current employer.
Mr. McQuade, 62, the head of banking at Merrill Lynch & Co., is to leave Bank of America next spring, a Merrill spokeswoman said. He joined Merrill in February after resigning from Freddie Mac the previous fall. Mr. McQuade had been heir apparent for the CEO's job.
In 2004, he left Bank of America after the Charlotte company bought FleetBoston Financial Corp., where he had been the president.
Last week a Merrill spokeswoman said Mr. McQuade was unavailable to comment