Wells Fargo keeps hiring senior executives for its RIA business

Wells Fargo & Co.’s wealth and investment management group continues to build out its support for registered investment advisors and said it hired Megan Hausmann as a lead recruiter for its RIA Solutions group.

Unlike its wirehouse competitors Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, Wells Fargo Advisors and its wealth and investment management group have broadened the work options for its roughly 12,000 financial advisors at the firm, including making it somewhat easier to move to its independent broker-dealer group, Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, known as FiNet.

Hausman until last month worked at Apex Clearing Corp., where she was senior director, advisory services. Her title at Wells Fargo is RIA Solutions Director of Business Development, west, according to a post Tuesday morning on LinkedIn by Craig Avery, Head of Wells Fargo Business Solutions.

In November, Wells Fargo said it had hired another Apex Clearing executive, George Tamer, to a senior role at its RIA Solutions group.

A Wells Fargo spokesperson said Hausmann was not available Tuesday for an interview about her new position.

Wells Fargo provides clearing and custody for unaffiliated broker-dealers through its First Clearing unit. The broad financial advice industry has watched and waited for years to see if Wells Fargo would embrace the independent RIA side of the industry, a risk that some believe could devalue its substantial wirehouse and employee wealth management franchise.

“Working with RIAs is an opportunity for Wells Fargo, and they could do much more on the custody side with First Clearing,” said Alois Pirker, an industry consultant. “But building its RIA capacity has always been a bit of a red-headed step-child at Wells Fargo because they didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship with the wirehouse, employee advisor.”

Wells Fargo competitors, notably Raymond James Financial Inc. and LPL Financial, have managed to offer a variety of work options and channels for advisors, Pirker noted, from employee to independent contractor to RIA.

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo’s variety of platforms for advisors may be gaining traction in the market, according to one recent report from an industry recruiter.

“One could argue that the Wells Fargo’s channel flexibility is a key differentiator, and the fact that advisors can 'slide' from their [employee] W2 channel into their independent FiNet channel is often an attractive selling point for perspective recruits,” according to the report, which was published this month by Diamond Consultants and is titled “Financial Advisor Transition Report.”

“Wells Fargo notched several high-profile wins, a welcome change from the constant negative headlines of years past,” according to the report. “Wells Fargo has shown tremendous appetite for the biggest teams in the industry, a marked change from years past.”