Wirehouse Wars: Merrill Loses Young NYC Star to Morgan Stanley
James P Taylor, a Merrill Lynch Wealth advisor who built a $380-million book of business since becoming a broker six years ago, led his 13-person New York City team to Morgan Stanley on Friday.
His team, which includes five financial advisors, produced about $3 million of revenue for Merrill in the previous 12 months, according to a person familiar with his practice. The group focuses on helping corporate executives manage highly concentrated stock portfolios, according to their Merrill team website.
They and their associates—four trainees, three client associates and an “investment consultant”—each have ten or fewer years of brokerage industry experience, an in-demand cohort at a time when the average Finra-registered advisor is over 50.
Merrill has lost several veteran multi-million-dollar producers in the past year—and in September bid adieu to a $3.3 billion-asset team in Manhattan that included three next-gen advisors who joined Morgan Stanley.
Despite the departures, Merrill plans to remain in the Protocol for Broker Recruiting that allows brokers to move with client contact information without fear of being sued and will continue its three-year freeze on recruiting competitively from rivals, a senior executive previously told AdvisorHub.
Unlike Morgan Stanley, which left the Protocol but this year re-entered recruiting after a budget freeze, Merrill is relying on new career-development programs to nurture replacement advisors, said the executive.
Taylor, whose team’s former web page indicates that he joined Merrill in a non-broker role in 2011, did not return a call for comment on the motivation for his move.
Morgan Stanley may have taken advantage of management turmoil at the Rockefeller Center branch where Taylor worked, since he was close to former manager Michael Simonds who was transferred in February to a downtown branch, said a longtime Merrill broker. Specialist teams, such as Taylor’s executive stock management group, often depend on manager-coordinated referrals from other advisors, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Morgan Stanley has been particularly interested in hiring teams that manage executive stock compensation plans, giving them exclusive access to leads from the bulk of its more than 15,000 brokers who are restricted from offering the services. In August, it hired a $6.5 million team of UBS producers in Houston, Tex., specializing in the stock-award space.
Merrill continues to make branch management shifts nationally to plug holes left by departing branch and complex managers. Last week, it told Texas advisors that Michael J. Barch will move from his role as associate manager of a Long Island, NY, complex to head its Downtown Dallas market on an interim basis.
Barch fills a role that had been held by downtown Dallas market head Alan Fonner, who retired on November 1. The three-branch complex has 125 advisors working with $17 billion in client assets, according to Fonner’s LinkedIn page.
Barch has been based in Huntington Station, NY, since 2016, and before that held commercial bank sales roles at Bank of America, Merrill’s parent company. He has been with BofA for 13 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Merrill last month elevated 13-year broker Robert Robles to manage a Dallas “Galleria” office that is part of a neighboring complex led by Chris Miller.
Merrill’s ongoing search for middle managers led it to tap Courtney McCarthy, a recent graduate of its leadership training program, to lead its Coastal New England market two weeks ago. Last week, Merrill made an unusual break in its recruiting policy, hiring veteran manager Sharon Perhac from Wells Fargo Advisors to oversee a Connecticut complex.
-Jed Horowitz contributed to this story.
So Merrill is bringing in a New York Banker who’s never been an advisor to “manage” Texas advisors managing $17 Billion.
What could go wrong?
Someone pass me the popcorn.
I’m positive that part of the “deal”, was that the team will be moved to the top of the Executive Stock Plan group at Morgan. Skipping ahead of the other teams who have been there for years. Thanks for playing by the rules.
I bet MS promised them access to the stock plans. We’ll see how they stick to it when these guys are in-house
Merrill still losing this late in the year? Have they announced the grids for next year? Salary with a chance of bonus?
That’s a lot of people for a 380mm book – wondering if there is a misprint?
Either way an ugly loss for a once great firm. Hard enough to find successful young advisors but you cant lose them
Hey Andy, just curious. Serious question, is “attrition still at an all time low”? Not headcount because everyone is aware of the shell game of replacing multi million dollars teams w edge trainees, etc. I believe that the attrition among experienced advisors is at an all time high. This should also be disclosed to investors, as it is at best misleading, and could have consequences if a class action attorney ever questions this. Just come clean and publish the number, and let BAC investors draw their own conclusions. IMO it’s a material fact. I don’t have the exact numbers, it is truly a question…..but every week it’s a james taylor, Gwen Campbell, Karl Lorenz, etc etc.
So true. They play with the fa headcount like Liberace on a grand piano. Totally misleading and at some point tells the larger story. Wha my is that -The bank’s policies create conflicts everyday and take away from the most important aspects that clients expect from and impacts negatively our fiduciary obligations
Here’s all I need to know, Sieg is on a conf call with managers now, at this moment, and “congratulating Biden” on his victory. Regardless if you are a republican, democrat, libertarian, the work place is no place to discuss politics, much less favorites. Keep your politics to yourself please.
Mr. Taylor is a stand up guy, amazing team leader and face of the next generation of advisors. Morgan Stanley is making out big time on this hire, this team is a new account machine and it will be great to see what they can do when plugged into the Morgan Stanley equity plan retention business. The kid was on his way to becoming the head of Merrill, he will be sorely missed.
So which one in the picture are you?
Wow you so bitter
I know him and his team well. Guy’s a fraud. He’s essentially a PMD runner within ML PMD. He’s done very little business organically within his practice, but brings on a ton of junior brokers to do all his cold calling and he takes the account. Dude is 33. I wouldn’t trust him with $10 to buy me a 6 pack of beer
Sounds like someone is just a little jealous. Don’t hate the player hate the game. Dude is a legend.
Nothing like a good internal ML pillow fight
doubt if he is a legend at 33. 13 member team on 380 million in assets? Something wrong there.
I don’t know this guy personally but when I was at merrill our complex had a handful of advisors who’s books were built by the complex director, and then those advisors were presented as the next greatest advisor of the world. Pretty common practice actually. Five advisors and three million in revenue would fit the narrative that 3 or more of the advisors are junior and being taken advantage of.
BofAd, it’s a lot more common than you think. It’s a shame this shouldn’t because this is management messing up a great thing for a lot of great FAs. My practice isn’t the largest but its very respectable and I can go to bed at night knowing it was from my partner’s and I efforts alone that we’re doing what we are. I know a lot of very large businesses whose FAs were never given a thing and they despise ML for stuff like this. It’s the antithesis of what the business should be- you’re rewarded for your hard work.
Unfortunately part of the business is being liked by your manager and your peers. The advisor in this article was clearly liked.
Did not know Fontana left – that is bad for Dallas – he was an open door corner office guy who helped out us young guys a lot pro bono and did not take splits like all the others. I learned a lot from him.