Hi, I am staff writer for RR mag. With the lousy market, we’ve heard rumors that wirehouse managment  is doing things to keep top producers happy, things extreme as increasing payout and as small as increasing expense accounts. Have you heard anything like this? If so, please share.

  For example, Smith Barney, MS and UBS have both improved their "retirement" offerings for their top advisors with long LOS. SB and MS both offer deals that go as high as 200 percent of the retiring rep's trailing 12--spread out over 5 years. We're wondering if firms are offering more incentives like this to keep top producers happy, as a means to offset how badly the rest of the firm is doing.   Of course all responses are off the record, we respect your privacy. Thanks.<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />