Janney Montgomery Scott’s aggressive recruiting efforts during the pandemic landed the company 43 new advisors by year-end 2020.
Processing Content
While many companies shut their doors and sent their employees home to work when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., Janney determined early on to keep its offices open. To do so, it has put in place many requirements across its more than 100 branches across the country to comply with local regulations, which vary by state and city.
Janney credits offering the choice as a major selling point to the advisors it onboarded. The company upped its recruiting package as well, which likely contributed some appeal.
The broker-dealer’s hiring success in such an unstable year underscores how advisors continued to join new firms and repaper their clients in 2020 industrywide, despite unprecedented market volatility and a wide shift to remote work and client interaction.
In late November, Jerry Lombard, president of the Private Client Group, said the company was on track to bring on about 50 advisors by the end of the year. The final tally was marginally lower, which the company attributes to advisors moving their onboarding dates.
“We had FAs push back their start date to January,” a company spokesman said in an email, adding that it happens frequently.
Philadelphia-based broker-dealer Janney Montgomery Scott LLC has been acquired by private equity firm KKR.
Advisors continued to make career moves despite a pandemic that has battered the U.S. economy and left many families grieving the death of loved ones.
In the independent broker-dealer sector alone, more than 300 advisors switched firms in 2020, according to recruiting moves tracked by Financial Planning. Companies including Morgan Stanley are seeing their headcount bulge, even as advisors move forward with plans to open their own firms and move to the independent channel.
At Janney, advisor credits were up 7% from the year prior at the end of November — a welcome cushion that helped make up for the firm’s drop in interest revenue, a financial pain point shared by broker-dealers across the industry.
The National Legal and Policy Center has successfully urged companies like Goldman Sachs and American Express to remove DEI from their board selection process, but now it argues that SEC actions are restricting shareholder rights too much.
Andrea Bethune contends in federal court that Carson Group moved her into a new role to make way for a woman 20 years her junior. Eventually, her position was eliminated.
Wealth management firms are beginning to push AI beyond back-office use and toward growth, panelists at Future Proof Citywide said. Success depends on a thoughtful approach and clean data.
The latest study tracking financial advisor movement from research firm Cerulli Associates suggests that employee brokerages must change with the times.
A well-intentioned tax move can push retirees over a Medicare income threshold, leading to thousands in unexpected annual premiums. Here's how advisors avoid these costs.
