Stifel's West Coast push rolls on with hire of ex-MSSB manager

Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc. has hired Susan M. Dixon, former branch manager of Smith Barney's Laguna Niguel, Calif., office, to open a Stifel branch in Irvine, Calif. Ms. Dixon, who joined Stifel this week and works out of its San Juan Capistrano, Calif., branch, said she plans to open the new office by the end of the year and eventually staff up to about 15 brokers. The Irvine office will be Stifel's third branch in affluent Orange County, California. Stifel now has 25 offices in that state, starting from zero less than three years ago, said Robert Burns, manager of the Stifel branch in San Juan Capistrano. The firm began targeting a Western expansion in August 2007, when it hired John Lee, the former Pacific Coast regional director for A.G. Edwards Inc., who was given a mandate to build out Stifel offices in Western states. Many of Stifel's brokers in the West are former A.G. Edwards representatives, although the firm has been picking up dissatisfied producers from other firms as well, Mr. Burns said. Ms. Dixon, who left the 39-broker Laguna Niguel branch of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC last March, said the MSSB bureaucracy was making it difficult for managers. "It's very difficult to navigate through the Morgan Stanley system," she said. Ms. Dixon trained at Morgan Stanley when she entered the business in 1997, and went to Smith Barney in 2004. Christy Pollak, a MSSB spokeswoman, said Ms. Dixon told the firm she left because she was disappointed about being passed over for a complex-manager position. Ms. Pollak said is was unclear if Ms. Dixon had been with the combined Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture long enough "to have an idea how the place worked." Ms. Dixon said she was familiar with St. Louis-based Stifel from her days growing up in Oklahoma City. "It's got a large presence there, but in California, it's not such a household name," she said.