CEO James Gorman never could muster much enthusiasm for ETrade Advisor Services, which would have been a direct competitor to the bank's 16,000 financial advisers.
A struggle for seats on the board of Blucora Inc., which owns the independent broker-dealer Avantax Investment Services Inc., is heading for a showdown. Blucora has purchased two broker-dealers in half-a-dozen years to expand into the wealth management business.
The wirehouse reported new records for net new assets of $105 billion, up 43% from the end of December and an increase of 183% from the same period a year earlier. 'My target is $10 trillion of money under management,' said CEO James Gorman. 'I've told the team internally, they hate that.'
While assets increased, adviser head count at the thundering herd dipped. The company is looking to expand in key markets like San Francisco, Florida and another half-dozen locales.
The decline is expected to continue over the next six months as the bank closes its international wealth management business. The embattled bank recently revised how it tallies its adviser head count total and this year began including about 800 to 900 private bankers and portfolio managers.
UBS has been hit with a rash of arbitration claims over strategies investors say damaged them, and most recently it saw a wave of investor complaints over Puerto Rico bonds and bond funds.
One bad broker making big bets or selling lousy or misunderstood products can damage or even ruin a firm. Are firms doing enough to keep those brokers and high-risk behaviors in check?
Former chief compliance officer Michael Cohn was also fined $50,000. A former Securities and Exchange Commission examiner, he was charged in October 2019 with obstruction of justice relating to an SEC investigation of GPB.
Jeter, whose teams won five World Series, retired from baseball after the 2014 season and is currently the CEO of the Miami Marlins.
Since 2017, the firm has been on the hook for $16 million in legal settlements and restitution to clients, with the lion's share stemming from one broker's sale of alternative investments to a Native American tribe in Michigan.
