I have heard good things about STIFEL... lots of AGE guys went there and love it.. Not sure if it is possible to open your own office, but maybe...

Also according to "On Wall Streets 2009 Payout Guide they very competitive in payout

http://cdn.onwallstreet.com/media/pdfs/compcharts.pdf

Payout is very good and they haven't changed it in like 10 years, but Gaddock their minimum fees on fee based accts are higher than ours at WFA.  They are like $1500 which makes it harder to put in 100k accts or below in fee.

I helped open a Stifel office recently.  What is your question?

Opening the branch:  after we finally got the go ahead, they were great.  It was frustrating waiting for them to digest the UBS deal and give us the green light, but they wanted to wait and "do it right."  They did "do it right" by the way.  Had the whole branch built out for us and furnished.  Had 6 people working in it for a week from HO to get it ready before we arrived.  Overall, very impressive.  They have the process down to a science for mass mailing and doing the paperwork.

Support:  Support has been outstanding.  People take the time to help you and get back to you with updates and problems. I talked to the head of Corp. Bonds the other day for 40 minutes as he gave me the tour of the offerings and gave me some ideas for a client.  Fantastic service.  About 1/3 of the people I talk to in St. Louis used to work for AGE.

Technology:  only down side.  they use the Thompson One platform, but the intranet is pretty sparse and frustrating.  Portfolio review software is lacking as well.  They use Planning Station for financial planning, which looks like it will be OK once I learn it.  WFA had a pretty good intranet that they inherited from AGE, but you had to dial 1-800-India to get help.  Given the choice between "find it yourself on Infomax", or "don't spend any time looking for something, just call us", I'll take the human help. 

Payout:  Great payout.  I was looking up the commission on an annuity the other day and they actually have the payout letters from the annuity companies posted on the intranet.  Imagine, a letter from Jackson, or Met, that lists the commission that they are paying to the firm before the firm takes a haircut.  You think you are getting a decent payout from WFA, but you are looking at your grid on the gross that WFA wants you to see.  They are taking, on average, about a 1% cut off of the top (that's about 20% of your pay to those of you in Rio Tinto) before you even know it.  They have announced a change in the comp starting in 2011.  It will be a $10K hurdle instead of $8K, but you will be getting a higher amount in deferred comp to offset.  I am not thrilled about the change, but at least it was telegraphed widely a full year in advance.  No gimicks.  No games.  No slide of hand. 

Fee based:  wider selection than WFA has, hands down.  I transferred all of my CAAP accounts to Confluence.  They are all of the old AGE guys that started the program in 2001 (Mark Keller, Bill O'Grady, Dave Myazaki - basically all of the money management brains at AGE).  They have a $100K minimum, but are making an exception for all of the AGE guys down to $25K.  The minimum fees on most of the fee based accounts are the same as at WFA.  I am not sure where Legend got his info, but he is a little off.

Statements:  way better than WFA.

Research: fantastic.

Management:  they stay out of your hair. do you job, and you never hear from them except for support.

I opened a Branch with Stifel and will be opening another one shortly.  I concur with everything CommonSense wrote.  I came from Morgan Stanley 13 months and I've never been happier.   

I agree with everything CS and SN said.  My only regret is not making the move sooner.

I was told by Stifel that their acct that is similar to Asset Advisor has a 1500 annual minumum??  Is that correct?  That is what I was referring to.  How many people/production did you have to gather together to open a branch?

Yes, you certainly don't have to do much to have a better statement the overkill that WFA calls a statement!

I will join, if you teach me how to call...

The $1500 is true, but you can household accounts together under that platform to mitigate that.

The program that you are referring to that is like AA is called Horizon, and it has a $1,500 min.  It doesn't force you to certain asset allocation models like I think AA does.  The list of assets you can put in it is huge.

We had a group of guys that totaled well north of a million.  I don't know what they minimally require, but I know that they would tell you.  Private Message me for the number of the person we dealt with to give you the details.

[quote=CommonSense]

The program that you are referring to that is like AA is called Horizon, and it has a $1,500 min.  It doesn't force you to certain asset allocation models like I think AA does.  The list of assets you can put in it is huge.

We had a group of guys that totaled well north of a million.  I don't know what they minimally require, but I know that they would tell you.  Private Message me for the number of the person we dealt with to give you the details.

[/quote]

Asset advisor doesn't force you into any model.  You can buy what you want to buy.  Also, WFA doesn't take an admin fee on this acct since you are the portfolio manager.  I have heard that Stifel does??

[quote=I am legend]

[quote=CommonSense]

The program that you are referring to that is like AA is called Horizon, and it has a $1,500 min.  It doesn't force you to certain asset allocation models like I think AA does.  The list of assets you can put in it is huge.

We had a group of guys that totaled well north of a million.  I don't know what they minimally require, but I know that they would tell you.  Private Message me for the number of the person we dealt with to give you the details.

[/quote]

Asset advisor doesn't force you into any model.  You can buy what you want to buy.  Also, WFA doesn't take an admin fee on this acct since you are the portfolio manager.  I have heard that Stifel does??

[/quote]

Stifel does not take any kind of admin fee on the non-discretionary advisory account or the discretionary advisory account.

Awesome info!!

[quote=Stifel Nation]

The $1500 is true, but you can household accounts together under that platform to mitigate that.

[/quote]

Explain this further please? 

[quote=I am legend]

[quote=Stifel Nation]

The $1500 is true, but you can household accounts together under that platform to mitigate that.

[/quote]

Explain this further please? 

[/quote]

If a client of yours has multiple accounts, you can group them together, as if they were one account.  For example, if your client has two IRA's and a taxable account worth $150,000 total; you could charge 1% for a total of $1500.  Each account would not be subject to the $1500 minimum per account.

Thanks

I understand it takes three million gross for them to seriously consider a new location. Location sure helps I believe.

A year or so it was 2.5MM but they said it was moving up

I'm being told $3 million as well, but vacancies in near by offices factors in as well.