Ameriprise’s Cracchiolo: There’s no retention program here

The CEO of Ameriprise Financial Inc., Jim Cracchiolo, made it clear on Thursday morning that the company had not designed a broad-based bonus pool or plan for the firm to hang onto or retain its 10,000 advisors, contrary to prior industry reports and industry analysis.

During a call about the company’s third-quarter earnings, analysts peppered Cracchiolo with questions about the retention bonus issue, which industry publications have reported and written about this month.

“People are trying to make hay out there in different ways,” the Ameriprise CEO said. “I would just say there's no program.”

He did, however, leave the door open for a discussion with the firm's advisors when they get an offer from a competitor to jump.  

"We work in partnership with our advisors, whether they're here and not looking to leave or that they get an offer or there's something that they think is always evaluated based on what people are saying out there, whether they deliver it or not," Cracchiolo said. "So whether it's going to an RIA or another firm, we look at the comparison." 

As InvestmentNews noted earlier this week in a report about 2027 advisor pay, major industry players, including UBS and Ameriprise Financial, are introducing or revamping retention bonuses as a way to keep advisors in their seats.

Instead of having a formal plan in place, as Cracchiolo stressed, Ameriprise may be using any retention payments selectively, industry sources have told InvestmentNews.

Compensation to advisors used to be all about pushing advisors’ behavior and getting them to sell certain products, like credit cards, mortgages or insurance products.

Now, firms are shaping compensation and pay increasingly to tie advisors to the firm and make sure they don’t jump to a private-equity backed RIA network or independent broker-dealer that features an RIA.

Firms are rejiggering pay as some of their most experienced and profitable financial advisors move to RIAs or independent broker-dealers, where the compensation is often much higher and the opportunity exists to own their own businesses.

Ameriprise is not making changes to its strategy to recruit or retain financial advisors but is focused on organic growth, management said during the call.

“We have retention because of succession, we have retention that’s  impacted by deaths,” Cracchiolo said. “We have 10,000 [or so advisors.] Our advisor count is consistent year-over-year.”

“We haven't lost in that regard,” he said, noting that the retention rate recently of the firm’s advisors has been in the upper 90% mark. “There's a lot of noise out there from anonymous sources, from recruiters with their own agendas. I don't want to comment.”

In a news release about the company’s third-quarter earnings, Ameriprise reported that it and Huntington Bank recently completed the transition of 258 Huntington advisors to Ameriprise with $28 billion of client assets transferring through early 2027.

Ameriprise is also adding an additional 29 advisors managing nearly $4 billion of client assets that joined Huntington through their acquisition of Cadence Bank. Those advisors will move to the Ameriprise platform in mid-2027.