Baird hires longtime Smith Barney hand to open Oregon office

Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. has reached into the ranks of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC for at least the second time in two months, this go-round snagging veteran broker David J. Perez. Mr. Perez will be leaving MSSB to open an office for Baird in Portland, Ore. Baird, which is based in Milwaukee, said that Mr. Perez has worked as a branch manager at Smith Barney and predecessor firms Shearson Lehman Brothers and E.F. Hutton & Co. for 23 years, and has been in the securities industry for 29 years. He most recently was a non-producing manager overseeing 47 advisers in two branches who generated $25 million of 2009 revenue in the Portland area, said Anne Crago, a spokeswoman for Baird. At the end of March, the company's private-wealth-management unit said it had hired a million-dollar production team from MSSB in Scottsdale, Ariz. That group included Russ Guard, who had been in the Smith Barney family for 15 years, and Jacob Duffy, a five-year Smith Barney veteran. Mr. Perez will open and manage what will be Baird's first office in the Pacific Northwest. He is not joining with any brokers in tow, Ms. Crago said. Baird had 670 financial advisers at the end of February, including 24 hired this year and more than 100 last year with the help of new managers hired from larger firms. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which exploded in size last summer when Morgan Stanley absorbed the former Citigroup Inc. retail-brokerage unit in a joint venture it controls, ended 2009 with more than 18,000 brokers.