Waddell & Reed Adds 5 Advisors

Broker-dealer Waddell & Reed has added five financial advisor additions. 

The new advisors, from wirehouses, banks, and independent firms, will work in registered offices in communities from San Antonio, Texas, to Hartford, Conn. Each advisor will bring approximately 200 household clients to the firm, said Todd Esh, Waddell & Reed's vice president of recruiting.

"We want advisors who do the right things for his or her clients," Esh said. "These are advisors who have a fee-based type business. They felt our fee based platform was better than what they had at their existing firms."

The new advisors are: 

  • Charles Fetters, formerly of Citizens Investment Services
  • Scott Swinchock from Edward Jones
  • Bonham“Ed” Freeman previously at Merrill Lynch
  • Michael Schlegel of Chase Investment Services
  • Brad Bates from IPI investments

Esh said that the firm usually hires bank advisors less often and relies more on wirehouses and independent firms for recruiting.
"Sometimes it's hard to know what bank advisors actually manage," he said. "A lot of bank advisors give investment advice to the bank's clients so we need to know if the relationship is between the advisor and client, or between client and the bank."

On the other hand, wirehouses usually take about 90% of clients with them, Esh explained.

"We're a little more wary when it comes to bank advisors," he said. "A lot of banks have non-competes and non-solicits, and there's less bureaucracy with independents and wirehouses."

The firm’s spokesman Roger Hoadley added that despite those generalizations, the end goal of the firm is to recruit experienced advisors around the country, independent of the types of firms they come from.

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