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.
VSR Financial Services Inc., an independent broker-dealer based in Overland Park, Kan., has tapped Christopher Radford as its new chief executive.
Another clearing firm bites the dust. Emmet A. Larkin Co. Inc. last month quietly shut down its back-office and clearing operations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
