Barclays Wealth Sets Sights on Top-5 HNW Spot

In mid-June Barclays Wealth hired Don Milich and Clifford Wang, both formerly of Morgan Stanley, to work in the firm’s Atlanta office.

Earlier this year, a Barclays source said the firm targets professionals producing about $2 million annually.

Barclays acquired Lehman Brothers’ private investment management business in September 2008 and has been using the group as a foundation for building this business in United States and Latin America. Following the December 2009 merger of BlackRock and Barclays Global lnvestors, including Barclay’s market-leading iShares ETF business, Barclays has maintained a 19.9% stake in the combined firm.

The investment bank says about 30% of its representatives come from wirehouse firms, and the rest come from investment boutiques, private banks, and other organizations that focus on high-net-worth clients.

“There’s been a big uptick in recent years as we have scaled up and increased our commitment to the business, and given what’s been going on at the wirehouses,” Alper said. “Thus, I could see us having great success in the channel going forward.”

He says that wirehouse advisors joining Barclays Americas are generally both those with less than 10 years in the business looking to grow their business in the high-net-worth client segment and those with more than 10 years in the business wanting to leverage the firm’s global investment platform, resources, and scale.

In addition to the asset-allocation platform, advisors are attracted to the ease of access to products, information, and support at Barclays Wealth. “You are not fighting with 18,000 other [advisors] to get resources or attention – or client coverage. It’s a wide-open playing field,” Alper said.