Top 40 brokers/advisors under 40

Dec 8, 2009 4:18 pm

I just read in one of the Financial Rags we get the list of the top “40 Advisors under 40”
Anyone else read this?

The minimum in AUM was about 500mm. 
Do you think the main reason for all of their success was sticking to new account minimums of $5mm and farming all the investments out to money managers.

A reasonable broker at the pinnacle of their careers probably has 100mm AUM so the brokers on the list have all reached 5 to 10 times that amount.

Many of the biggest brokers were a part of a team or at least a partnership.
I for 1 would prefer 200mm aum handled by 1 person than 1000mm with a team of 5 etc.

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Why do you think these folks have been so successful and what could we learn.
Thx!

Dec 8, 2009 4:24 pm

I had a friend who was on there last year.


Was originally indy with $75K-250K accounts(back before indy had anything) was there 2 years and left for a wirehouse. He said he just kept trading up clients, and eventually got to the $1MM plus arena and dropped off his little account to newbies.   A lot of them on the list inherited their book(team, family, etc) some built it, some got lucky(you could say hardwork creates luck)... did you see the guy at the bottom under regionals, $300MM AUM and 30 years old but only $500K t-12.... What is he doing...?
Dec 8, 2009 4:28 pm

Dash, they are in different leagues than many of us.  Many of them serve UHNW individuals, pension funds, endowments, etc. 

And yes, most of them started (or moved) onto teams that focused on high value accounts.  Most of us can't just wake up one day and decide to service only $5mm minimums.  And when you service these types of accounts, 100-150 accounts per advisor is about the max you can reasonably manage.  And many are much less (more like 40-60 accounts per advisor).  It's just a different world.   Lot of interesting stories - joining Dad's team, having a client base from one employer that went public and made everyone rich, stumbling onto some lucrative niche, etc.   Thos are nice articles to read, but not realistic for 95% of the advisors out there.
Dec 8, 2009 4:41 pm

I hate niches with the rest of them, but I think if you called nothing but presidents and ceos all day long, you could land some decent accounts.

Dec 8, 2009 4:44 pm

Well, when your book consists of a total of 50 accounts, and you have $750mm AUM, I would say you have a successful niche.  When you are going after $250K accounts, you need a few more of them.

There's one guy in there in like Wisconsin that had a bunch of Fastenal employees from his hometown that all got rich when the company went public.  That's one way of doing it!
Dec 10, 2009 4:16 am

Does it mention what T12 was relative to the AUM?

I'm guessing it's a lot of thiner-margin institutional business.  The $500M AUM guys aren't producing $5M GDC...are they?
Dec 10, 2009 4:34 am

[quote=B24]Well, when your book consists of a total of 50 accounts, and you have $750mm AUM, I would say you have a successful niche.  When you are going after $250K accounts, you need a few more of them.

There's one guy in there in like Wisconsin that had a bunch of Fastenal employees from his hometown that all got rich when the company went public.  That's one way of doing it![/quote]

Ed Jones LOVES Fastenal.  That's all their guys pitch in my part of Wisconsin.  I didn't realize they pushed it in other parts of the country as well?!
Dec 10, 2009 5:05 am

[quote=dividend_and_conquer]

Does it mention what T12 was relative to the AUM?

I'm guessing it's a lot of thiner-margin institutional business.  The $500M AUM guys aren't producing $5M GDC...are they?[/quote]   My buddy has $300MM and his production is around $2.5MM, so I think it depends how and what they do.. I have always heard the goal is 75-100bps of the assets
Dec 10, 2009 3:05 pm

He’s right though, if they are doing a lot of institutional business with $10mm+ accounts, I doubt they are getting much more than 50 bips.  I think it probably runs the gammut with these guys.  Some do mostly private wealth, some do mostly institutional, hard to tell.  And I don’t know how wirehouses work in terms of institutional lending, cash management, etc. and what they get credited for on their production.  They may get some credits for non-asset business.  Does underwriting referrals get them any gross?  I would imagine some of them provide leads to the investment bankers.