To recruit brokers.  EDJ does not have signing bonuses, etc.

Jones does not split up the assets because they are trying to open as many offices as they can regardless of what it does to the existing offices in the area or if the area is already saturated.

Another Jones broker left that office or was forced out. They did offer the assets to another office.  The better assets have probably been already sent to a more established office, so it is likely that what is left are the least desirable accounts. 

In addition, you might want to know how many other brokers have come and gone in that office before you step into it.  One of my former EDJ colleagues was offered an office and not told that he was the 5th broker in 6 years at that office.  Needless to say the clients that were still there, after being treated like  badminton shuttles were pretty jaded and not too impressed with his efforts.  And they were the accounts that take up time and give little return.

Thanks for the informative answers, everyone. There’s no way I’m going to take any offer they may come up with, but I was very interested as to why they’d keep assets in an empty office over just merging the accounts with another, local existing one. Seems kind of inefficient to me to have duplicate overhead, but I suppose that’s their business model.

Jones does not move assets to another office unless they can get no one to fill the office after a pretty considerable amount of time.  They assign a person in STL to handle the clients by phone. 

I agree with Babbling Looney about finding out the office's history.  I was given a SMALL office that had nothing in it.  I should have checked because of course they did not tell me.  I was just told the great thing about having an asst and no build out on the office.  Only once I got in the office did I find out the nothing that was there and that my expectations rose dramatically.  Be careful....

I will also mention again that all STL cares about is the number of offices.  They don't care if the area is over saturated with EJ and others.  They look at market share like it is the holy grail.

I got the same call about a month ago from Jones.  They claimed a guy was gonna retire next month with about $25,000,000 AUM.  My Jones friends were pretty mad because they felt it should be divided up. 

I agree that most of the good accounts have probably been picked over already.

Retiring with 25M, gotta be kidding…

[quote=iconsult100]

I got the same call about a month ago from Jones.  They claimed a guy was gonna retire next month with about $25,000,000 AUM.  My Jones friends were pretty mad because they felt it should be divided up. 

I agree that most of the good accounts have probably been picked over already.

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He should have been fired....................., not even a churn and burn Jones IR could live off that, not at 38% commission, paying 50% of your mail, as well as other personal expenses, not unless they are a relative of Doug "3 Mil" Hill   Yes GP's do take care of their own......they only eat the others

I hope the guy succeeds just to watch you have an embolism.

I got the same call about 30 days ago - I recognize your name, and I live in the same area.  Anyway - these guys only do commission mutual funds - if you have any fee based business, forget it.

I was with EJ for 5-6 yrs and started an office from scratch.  They didn't give assets out other EJ IRs. All they want to do is throw more brokers/offices out there by attracting rookies with the assets from open offices.  Offices that are on top of each other I might add.  Hell, in my region, one IR might have one spouse come to a seminar and another IR would bring the other spouse to the same seminar.  I happened more than once to me.  As IRs, we'd be going down the same streets as each other.  Seriously!  I quit counting the IRs-- after 60 (yes 60) that dropped off the time I was there.  The only IRs I saw make it knew how to work the system.  Screw U EJ and the very few vets in my region.  It's great to be Indy!!!

And the vets are the best at working the system!

Go look at other firms!