Like businesses across the financial services industry, clearing firms are feeling the pressure and the strain from the historic market downturn. It is a difficult and competitive business environment for the firms, which are key partners to broker-dealers, clearing and settling transactions for them and their representatives.
Recent raiding at broker-dealers has sparked ugly and bitter feuds and led to significant damage awards, and financial industry attorneys and experts see more cases in the offing.
Morgan Stanley last month suffered a $1 million loss in an arbitration case charging that the firm had “blindsided” a small regional broker-dealer, Strand Atkinson Williams & York Inc., “by a swift and crippling raid” of senior management and top-producing brokers.
Another clearing firm bites the dust. Emmet A. Larkin Co. Inc. last month quietly shut down its back-office and clearing operations.
VSR Financial Services Inc., an independent broker-dealer based in Overland Park, Kan., has tapped Christopher Radford as its new chief executive.
Tensions have been building for months among financial advisers affiliated with Mutual Service Corp., a subsidiary broker-dealer of LPL Investment Holdings Inc., as they wonder about the future of their firm.
“I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation!” rock 'n' roll icon Joan Jett sang in 1981.
A sprawling case of alleged securities fraud involving an independent broker-dealer and two brokers may wind up costing an insurance company $10.3 million.
Advisers who are members of NAPFA had a range of thoughts and reactions to the news that the SEC last month charged a past president of the organization with taking kickbacks related to unregistered investment pools his firm managed.
As part of a settlement last month with securities regulators in Arizona, Woodbury Financial Services Inc. agreed to tighten its policy of looking into the financial backgrounds of their 1,750 reps and advisers.