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July 27, 2012 at 09:04 AM
Janney Montgomery Scott hired an ex-Morgan Keegan advisor with more than $200 million in client assets and several million in annual production, the firm said Tuesday.
While this is bad news for Raymond James Financial (RJF), which acquired Morgan Keegan in April, it shouldn’t detract from the strong advisor retention that RJ has achieved over the past few months, experts say.
“They’ve done a fabulous job with their rate of retention,” said recruiter Rick Peterson of Rick Peterson & Associates in the great Houston area, in an interview at AdvisorOne. “Frankly, it surprised me.”
According to results of the quarter ending June 30, which were released late Wednesday, Raymond James has kept more than 900 of the roughly 1,000 Morgan Keegan advisors and managers it could have potentially added through its acquisition. (The deal was announced in January and completed in April.)
“I knew the Morgan Keegan reps were all in discussion with somebody else … and could have signed on [to other firms] with better [compensation] packages elsewhere,” added Peterson. “It came down to the camaraderie and the uniqueness of the firm; they did a great selling job.”
As expected, Raymond James executives are upbeat about how their retention efforts have done, as well.
“While departures are driven by individual reasons, we are naturally disappointed when any advisor decides to leave the firm,” said Tash Elwyn (left), president of Raymond James & Associates Private Client Group, in a statement. “We recognize that competitors can be very aggressive with their offers, but we are nonetheless very proud of the overall retention rate of both our newly affiliated Raymond James | Morgan Keegan advisors as well as our existing advisors.”