The recruiting wars are heating up at the regional firms. Philadelphia-based Janney Montgomery Scott has recruited two teams from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney with total assets of $380 million. The recruiting win will expand the firm’s southern footprint, said Jerry Lombard, president of Janney’s private client group.
The new FAs include Peter Sampson, who will lead The Sampson Group, Kenneth P. Wiland Sr., and R. Morgan Purvis. All are joining Janney’s Aiken, S.C. office.
So far this year, Janney has picked up 11 advisors, including a 20-year Merrill veteran with $250 million in assets. This comes on the heels of a two-year lull in recruiting. The firm brought on eight new reps in 2010 and 10 new advisors in 2011.
The regional firm’s sweet spot is wirehouse advisors. Lombard attributes the flow of advisors out of the wires not only to the retention deals that are winding down, but also to a change in culture away from entrepreneurship. Instead, the firms are operating more as banks, pushing products through a distribution channel—the rep. There’s more pressure in how advisors run their business.
Other regionals are also having success in recruiting from the wirehouses. Baird, for example, just recently brought over Mark Stevanovic from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
But Lombard says Janney has no plans to go national; the firm plans to continue to add to existing branches in the Northeast and possibly enter new markets in the South.