Yet another team jumps ship at Morgan Keegan

Another team of Morgan Keegan advisers has bolted the Memphis-based firm that was put on the block by parent Regions Financial Corp. three months ago. Peter Korcusko Jr. and Frank Colucci IV, a team based in Clearwater, Fla., joined Morgan Stanley Smith Barney's Clearwater office on Sept. 13. The team managed $104 million in assets at Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc. and had trailing-12-month production of $1.129 million, according to MSSB spokeswomen Christine Pollak. The two advisers will report to MSSB branch manager Brian Kilczewski. The Clearwater office is part of the Tampa Bay complex headed by Steven Freeman, Ms. Pollak said. According to Finra filings, Mr. Korcusko and Mr. Colucci joined Morgan Keegan in 2007 from AmSouth Investment Services Inc., where they had been advisers for four years. The firm's parent corporation, AmSouth Bancorporation, was acquired by Regions for $10 billion late in 2006. The Clearwater team is the second significant defection at Morgan Keegan in the past week. Last week, Richard Smith and Steven Thornton, Morgan Keegan advisers based in Huntsville, Ala., launched their own firm with Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network LLC. Calls to Morgan Keegan seeking comment on the departures were not returned. But the exits come as The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. continues to solicit interest in the brokerage firm on behalf of Regions. Morgan Keegan's more than 1200 financial advisers are largely concentrated in the Southeast. To date, very few have left the firm, despite a subprime-mortgage-backed-securities scandal in the firm's asset management division and the expected sale of the outfit. Recruiters and analysts say that private-equity firms and strategic buyers have submitted bids for Morgan Keegan but they are probably short of the $1 billion Regions is reportedly seeking for the firm. “These advisers at these production levels had multiple choices, including staying at Morgan Keegan,” said Ron Edde, a recruiter at Armstrong Financial Group Inc., which placed the Smith-Thornton team with Wells Fargo Finet. “The fact they both left in rapid succession is probably not a coincidence. This may be the first sign of the exodus.”