NEW YORK Reuters – Morgan Stanley has asked an Idaho court to prohibit three brokers it says generated over half the revenue at its Coeur dAlene branch from contacting former colleagues about joining them at a Stifel Nicolaus & Co. office they have set up in the same cityThe offices producing branch manager, Michael Armon, and two associates resigned from Morgan Stanley on May 9, causing “upset, anxiety, insecurity, uneasiness and concern” at “a relatively small office” that had only six advisers, according to a May 17 filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho by the brokerage. The brokers who left oversaw about $229 million of client assets and generated about $1.7 million of revenue annually, the filing said.Morgan Stanley seeks return of all company and client documents from the advisers and asked the court to ban them from destroying any records or documents that could be used in an arbitration proceeding that is being arranged. It also asked to enjoin them from contacting the three brokers and their support staff still working at the Morgan Stanley office.Brokerage firms fight fiercely to retain and recruit top brokers and requests for restraining orders are common. The Idaho case, however, brings up some unusual issues, lawyers said. Most significantly, it could help distinguish between illegal “raiding” of a branch and acceptable recruiting practices that are largely orchestrated by branch managers.

via Morgan Stanley sues high-producing brokers for jump to Stifel – chicagotribune.com.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management has scored a new private wealth advisor who previously managed more than $1 billion in client assets at Credit Suisse.Vishal Bakshi moved to Merrill Lynch’s Private Banking and Investments Group in New York on May 24 following 12 years at Credit Suisse. Prior to that, Bakshi, who is 40, served as a business development manager at Bertelsmann Media Group.

via Merrill Lynch Lures Credit Suisse Advisor Vishal Bakshi | On Wall Street.

Baird has snapped up an advisor with $200 million in AUM from William Blair, an employee-owned brokerage in Chicago.Paul Donnelly, who has 25 years of experience, joins the firm as director and financial advisor in the Chicago Private Wealth Management office.Donnelly began his career in 1987 in the tax division of Arthur Anderson and had been at William Blair as an investment counselor since 2006.

via Baird Adds Advisor from William Blair | On Wall Street.

Trading a job at a giant corporation for a tiny firm often means a big pay cut. For Leo Arms, it was anything but.

Arms left his brokerage job at Morgan Stanley in November 2011 to start his own firm, Thomas Leo Advisory, in Minneapolis.

“I’m making a little bit more than I was at the wirehouse,” he said. “But my clients are paying significantly less.”

He is also happier. “I run my business in my own way. And I’ve eliminated the conflict of interest that goes with depending on commissions to earn a living,” said Arms, whose income percolates from fees on client assets, not commissions on transactions.

via Independent Advisers Are Giving Wirehouses A Run For The Money – Investors.com.

Baird has added to its ranks with four advisors from Morgan Stanley, UBS and Northern Trust.They will form two teams in Nashville, Tenn., and Edina, Minn., and collectively oversee around $800 million in assets.The Liles group, a father-son team of Malcolm Liles and William Liles, joins in Nashville. Malcolm Liles joins as director, and they will oversee approximately $585 million with the help of their client relationship assistant Sherri Minunno.Both were previously with Morgan Stanley. Malcolm Liles has more than three decades of experience after beginning at Robinson-Humphrey in 1981 and working his way to Morgan Stanley through a series of mergers.William Liles began his career at Morgan Stanley in 2010 when he joined his father.

via Baird Adds 4 from Morgan Stanley, UBS, Northern Trust | On Wall Street.

An arbitration panels recent decision to deny Wells Fargo Advisors LLCs $30 million raiding claim against crosstown rival Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc. is just the tip of the iceberg in a six-year battle over advisers.More than a dozen raiding claims from Wells Fargo drove Stifel to file a complaint against its rival with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc., alleging a “nationwide scorched-earth litigation campaign against Stifel” and an “ongoing abuse of the judicial and Finra arbitration process.”A first hearing on the case is scheduled to begin next March. In the claim, filed about a year ago but recently obtained by InvestmentNews, Stifel lays out 13 arbitration cases Wells Fargo Advisors has filed since 2007 that accuse Stifel of raiding its branch offices.AdvertisementRather than pursue legitimate claims, Wells Fargo Advisors has engaged in “restraint of trade, abusing the [arbitration] process and trying to intimidate people … from leaving,” said Ron Kruszewski, chief executive of St. Louis-based Stifel.In an interview, Mr. Kruszewski said he thinks he has a good shot at getting an award and stopping what he sees as a vendetta against Stifel by his larger competitor that began in 2007 when he started picking off former A.G. Edwards Inc. brokers after that St. Louis firm was acquired by Wachovia Securities LLC.Wachovia was later taken over by Wells Fargo & Co.

via Stifel turns tables on Wells Fargo with scorched earth claim.

Firms looking to recruit hesitant advisors need to start wooing their families, a new Fidelity survey suggests.“If you have an eye on top producers, you should take the advisor and the spouse out to dinner,” Sanjiv Mirchandani, the president of Fidelity’s clearing division National Financial, said in an interview. Spouses, he adds, “are going to play an important role in the [advisor’s] decision.” Fidelity Investments’ second annual Insights on Independence study explored the motivations and experiences of advisors who moved — or chose not to move — to new firms in the last five years. The study surveyed 783 advisors between November and December, with an average AUM of $150 million, and sorted them into three groups: movers, fence-sitters and entrenched advisors.

via Recruiting and Hiring a Financial Advisor? Fidelity Study Offers Advice | On Wall Street.

Breaking away from the wirehouses has paid off handsomely for financial advisers over the past five years, according to a new study from Fidelity Investments.

Advisers who went from a wirehouse to an independent registered investment adviser or an independent broker-dealer saw compensation increase 36% since 2008, according to Fidelity’s second annual Insights on Independence study.

Those who moved from a wirehouse to another wirehouse or from an independent shop to a wirehouse saw compensation increase 22%, and advisers who stayed put saw compensation increase 17%, according to the survey of 783 advisers with more than $10 million in assets under management.

Advisers who jumped ship reported keeping about 79% of clients.

via Breaking away from wirehouses pays off.