Good meetings to report on but I don’t want to name names. I have a lot of detail and will be glad to share if you pm me.  In fact, just about every friend I’ve made in this business these last years has been ‘out’ for coffee or lunch a lot more lately.  Firms continue to be very aggressive especially for top quintile producers.  Watch for the ‘up front’ portions to drop the cash amount back 10-30% and replace it with stock.   Many will move to ‘cash in’ imho. Deals come in a bit end of year. I think we may more reality soon.   

One thing I have seen with the legacy AGE guys for sure lately is this

LOS/T-12 ratio moving against them.  Big firms not chasing the 10+ LOS FA who’s not near or over $500k ish mark at the least.  I know one advisor at AGE, 23 LOS, $385k was flat out told by SB AND MS locally… no deal, no seat,  no interest. . They think they can cherry pick the bigger brokers which is probably true.   These guys were paying and chasing this not that long ago.

Lower producers though will find some love at 2 regionals I know will go 65-80% up front and strong fixed payout for first 24

I’m in month 14 done very well and have been offered a very good contract by MS as a new train with salary for two years. If you have a good TTM as a rookie you have value … thank God.

Probably the 23 years in the biz scared them off more than the TT. 23 years in the biz you would expect more production. I am interested in who the regionals are, although I can guess Stiefel and RBC are in the mix.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081007/business_us_wachovia_wellsfargo_citigroup.html?.v=8

Of course MER reps haven’t seen anything yet. Management knows that its a terrible time to move a book right now.

I heard that BAC and MER are $100’s of Millions of dollars apart on what they want to give the brokers.   

good regionals, smaller deal, but good payouts… add Wedbush, Opco

I agree, it’s hard to move a book, but not everywhere. Loads of my clients I think would or could view a move as a positive… me making a choice to re-align with their best interest in mind.  

Well now you can move your book to Wells Fargo and not even have to prepare ACATS. Citi just backed off on the negotiations. They are letting Wells have it.

I was not expecting this outcome for Wells and WB. It would see good on the surface for us, even though the desperation of Citi leads me to believe they’ll be getting a bailout sooner than later.

I think going back to an independent would have been great, but for how long?  And then you may not have as good as choice of dance partners.

I think Citi is in trouble, as evidenced by how hard they pursued a crippled Wachovia.