Janney Montgomery Scott has added two advisor teams from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, picking up $380 million of client assets in the process. Both teams will work from Janney’s new Aiken, S.C. office, a satellite of the Atlanta office, and report to Jeffrey Paulsen, senior vice president and manager of Janney’s Atlanta branch office.
The newcomers include industry veterans Peter Sampson, Senior Vice President/Wealth Management, who will lead The Sampson Group at Janney Montgomery Scott; and Kenneth P. Wiland, Sr., First Vice President/Wealth Management. Sampson and Wiland, who have worked together but do not share clients, will each bring around $190 million of client assets to Janney.
Both Sampson and Wiland had been at Morgan Stanley since the 1980s. Moving with them to Janney are R. Morgan Purvis, a financial advisor who will work with Sampson, and two registered private client assistants: Kathy Roberts and Mary Ann Barrett.
“Pete and Ken both wanted to focus on their clients, rather than manage a branch office,” Jerry Lombard, president of Janney’s Private Client Group, told On Wall Street. “We hope to add some more people to serve the Aiken-Augusta [Georgia] area, and we are confident we can manage a larger satellite office from our branch office in Atlanta.” According to Lombard, about 15% of Janney’s approximately 100 locations are satellites or connected in some way to larger branch offices.
“The hiring of these team members in Aiken expands our already substantial presence in the Southern region, building upon our tradition of serving investors through experienced financial advisors in convenient locations,” Lombard said. He added that Philadelphia-based Janney already has many locations south of the Mason-Dixon line and intends to expand within its “footprint” area, up and down the East Coast. Janney’s new hires this year already exceed the (admittedly low) total from 2011; most of the incoming advisors are from wirehouses, bringing client assets over $100 million, on average.
In welcoming the Aiken advisors, Lombard said that “More and more quality advisors are finding Janney to be a top destination. They believe that Janney is a great alternative to many larger firms and wirehouses because of our culture, which supports our advisors and, above all else, enables an unwavering focus on meeting client needs.”
When asked whether this statement reflected recent industry controversy about putting clients first or last, Lombard replied that it was not intended as a comment on practices at other firms. He did add two examples showing Janney’s client-oriented focus. “In 2003,” he said, “we were among the first to put a product-neutral grid in place. A few years ago, when the auction-rate securities market seized up, we purchased all of those securities from our clients at par. We felt that was the right thing to do.”
Donald Jay Korn writes for
