News

Wow, to be single AND a Master of the Universe.

Facing 22 years in jail for stealing $19 million from client retirement plans, Barry Stokes made creative use of his jail time while awaiting sentencing: He crafted voodoo dolls of his financial victims and stuck pins in them...

For the past six months or so, big wirehouse advisors (with $100 million in assets or more) have increasingly been asking us about joining RIA firms. This has been accompanied by a similar increase in the number of advisors seeking to have...

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro announced the release today of the Office of the Inspector General’s report on the Bernard Madoff fraud. In short, the SEC screwed up in every way possible. Along with the announcement, Schapiro outlined how the...

The SEC sent a warning to b/d executives Monday about the recruiting bonuses they pay to advisors, saying they could encourage advisors to do things that are not in their clients’ best interests.

Name Firm City, State Estimated Total AUM (in millions) Years In The Industry Business Description/Specialty 1. Mark T. Curtis Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Palo Alto, Calif. 15,000 29 Private clients, corporate services, endowments, foundations...

Recently introduced legislation threatens to change the IRS rules on independent contractor worker classification and the Financial Service Group (FSI) is worried.

The latest news out of UBS involves former Merrill executive, Bob McCann, who’s dealing with a non-compete clause that’s keeping him from supposedly joining the firm.

Advisors might think twice about taking a Friday off and leaving your book in the hands of your “capable” sales assistant (or client associate—whatever firms call trusted SAs these days).

Bloomberg is reporting that Bob McCann, the former head of Merrill Lynch’s brokerage unit, is nearing a deal with his old employer that will allow him to take a job running UBS’s wealth management unit.