Best Wirehouse or Regional for launching a career?
6 RepliesJump to last post
Hello all, due to family circumstances I may be moving and the cities I’m likely to move to don’t have much in the way of traditional finance jobs. My career has been spent in capital markets/investment banking and corporate banking both at a middle market firm and a bulge bracket. I’m considering making the move to a FA role in a Southern lifestyle oriented city think Wilmington, Charleston or Savannah. I’d appreciate more color on the wirehouse training programs as well as regional firms like Raymond James and Scott & Stringfellow. I’m well aware that the role is more sales-oriented and quite frankly that’s one of the primary appeals of it.
I have looked at the various wirehouse firms and wondered is there really much of a difference between UBS, Merrill, WFA and MS? Are regionals any better of a choice?
In particular does anyone have color on Morgan Stanley’s FAA program, UBS, Merrill PMD, Scott and Stringfellow, Stifel, Raymond James, Baird or Hilliard Lyons? Anyone else worth a look?
I had interviewed with MS. Fairly agressive targets with pedestrian payouts. They did have a number of advisors/advisor groups that were near retirement in my area that would have been a possible fit. They ultimately didn't extend an offer after implying one was coming. Perhaps a good thing..?
kbusch65 wrote:
I had interviewed with MS. Fairly agressive targets with pedestrian payouts. They did have a number of advisors/advisor groups that were near retirement in my area that would have been a possible fit. They ultimately didn't extend an offer after implying one was coming. Perhaps a good thing..?
Very interesting, was this in the southeast? What size city/branch? I would really appreciate if you could say what the hurdles were.
I'm in suburban Chicago. They really expect $5M a year in AUM growth as a minimum. I thought that was aggressive as a friend at Ed Jones had told me they looked for growth at about half that rate. Not sure if that is accurate info or not..
I wound up speaking with an alum who is at UBS and was wondering if anyone had some thoughts on their training as compared to some of the other wirehouses? I’m well aware that being an FA initially is more focused on sales and cold calling doesn’t bother me, in fact it’s how I got my first internship way back in college. However, I’m looking for whichever shop offers the best chance at success and the drivers for me at least initially would be sales training, salary and hurdles. Any thoughts?