When their clients saw UBS in the headlines of the local newspaper, Paul Weinstein and Nadine Wilkes began receiving phone calls. "They asked questions like: 'Is UBS going to survive? and 'Is my money safe?' " says Weinstein, who had been an advisor at UBS for a dozen years at the time; Wilkes had spent 19 years with the company.

The team fielded dozens of calls questioning the credibility of UBS, none of which mentioned the portfolios Weinstein and Wilkes had created during their many years at the firm. And so, after two years of toying with the idea, the team decided it was time they took going independent seriously—very seriously.

They did their research, looking for the right broker-dealer for their $400 million book of business. They chose Raymond James, resigned from UBS and moved their team to Fort Myers, Fla. to form Weinstein Wilkes Financial Group.

Much of this year has seemed like a stream of nightmares for many in the financial services industry. Massive writedowns, sudden bankruptcies, erratic acquisitions and aggressive government bailouts have ended Wall Street as we know it. A new landscape is in the process of being formed, and no one quite knows what its contours will be.

And the evolution doesn't end there. While the territory alters, the inhabitants are on the move. As firms like Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley splash across headlines, wirehouse brokers are migrating to the independent side of the industry—where auction-rate securities, faulty mortgage assets and subpar quarterly earnings are less likely to be clients' primary concern.

Many financial planners starting off in the advisory industry choose to go to the wirehouses, often as much for the name recognition and reputation as for the resources. But as more and more major institutions find their troubles printed in black and white, the name recognition of a wirehouse is anything but positive.

The devaluation of the wirehouse brands began during the tech bust in 2000 and 2001, and continued through former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's period of dethroning various Wall Street kings, says Bill Crager, president of Envestnet Asset Management in Chicago. And now, as injured balance sheets are exposed and stocks plunge, there could be no coming back for several of these once-envied institutions. Time to go.

"A lot of wirehouse brokers are involved in their company's deferred compensation, and that is typically issued in company shares—the 'golden handcuffs,'" says Mike Stanfield, chief executive officer of VSR Financial Services, who worked for wirehouses for eight years before starting VSR.

"This made it very difficult to lure them out," Stanfield continues. "But stocks plummeted and the value of those golden handcuffs went down. Now, as the handcuffs come off, you're going to see more movement from wirehouses in the next six months than you did in the last six years."

For some, it is simply a matter of security that is causing them to jump to the independent side. Mindy Diamond, president of Diamond Consultants, a search firm that specializes in placing financial planners nationwide, explains that while many advisors have long fantasized about going independent, they often do not have the stomach or the desire to be a business owner.

But in light of recent economic turmoil, she says, many are siding with the lesser of two evils, enduring the headaches of being a business owner in order to not have to look over their shoulders, waiting for the next scandal or worse, bankruptcy.

A B-D's Dream

Many broker-dealers are feeling the benefits of advisors' push toward independence. Though St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Raymond James was already having what it considered to be a very good year, Senior Vice President and National Director of Business Development Bill Van Law was happy to see the company's growth revenue from new advisors up 45% year-to-date through August. Lead flow is up nearly sixfold.

At the national Raymond James Conference in Washington, D.C. this year, there were 56 advisors representing $37 million in production—each producing an average of $657,000—who were looking to find out more about going independent with the RJ brand. Only 13 such advisors showed up at last year's conference in San Diego.

The phones have been ringing off the hook at LPL as well. Qualified leads were up 154% year-to-date through August at the Boston-based independent broker-dealer. Call volumes and requests for information from wirehouses—and even banks—have grown rapidly.