Long before the firm announced in April that it was merging with Wachovia, brokers at First Union Securities complained about a corporate infrastructure taxed by growth and change. The operations department is a half continent away from us, one...
The evolution of Merrill Lynch continued full steam ahead in 2001. And many Merrill brokers say they love being out in front of the pack with changes. I think Merrill Lynch is usually on the cutting edge, ahead of change and always anticipates...
The retirement of A.G. Edwards Chairman, CEO and President Ben Edwards III in March once again ignited merger speculation. But Edwards brokers breathed a collective sigh of relief this year as the firm remained independent. Brokers are passionate...
When Travelers Group and Citicorp merged in 1998, Travelers chief Sandy Weill crowed about the cross-selling potential. Back then, reps worried about impending sales pressure, but they say now that the anxiety was unnecessary. There's total...
In his poem, Mending Wall, Robert Frost wrote, Good fences make good neighbors. By that Frost means that good relationships require clear boundaries. The same can be said of your relationships with clients. If you establish good fences first, you...
Sometime during the first quarter of 2002, Morgan Stanley will unveil a new rookie training program. The biggest change is a requirement that trainees complete five modules of coursework to prepare for the CFP exam, says Todd Taylor, Morgan...
It's already tough for brokers to expunge erroneous information from their CRD reports. Now, it might get even more difficult. That's because the NASDR has proposed a detailed set of rules governing how brokers can correct inaccurate customer...
The Association for Investment Management and Research (AIMR) is working on new guidelines to address analyst integrity. Charlottesville, Va.-based AIMR confers the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation to its members, most of whom are...
Morgan Stanley reps' business cards got shorter this year, with the deletion of the Dean Witter name in April. Yet the change rated nary a mention by survey respondents, who were more interested in critiquing Morgan Stanley's management...
When UBS Warburg bought PaineWebber last year, reps were a bit unsettled, unsure of what to expect. The mood now: So far, so good. The prefix was added in March, and Joe Grano took over as chairman for Don Marron in August. Nothing else has...
