I do not work for them but, I would not consider them a Indy !

There were a couple of threads that discussed them at length recently…do a topic search on Wachovia and I think you’ll find a lot of information.

I have a friend there and he loves it.  I know another guy who does very well on the full service side who is trying to decide if he should move onto their “semi - Indy” platform

What do you want to know?

[quote=$$$$$]What do you think? Anyone working under the above?[/quote]

Not really indy.  But better than being stuck at the bank.

$$$$,

I'm a Wachovia Finet Licensee. I came from a wirehouse (Smith Shearson Citi Salomon and Hutton) 3 years ago. Now I have two brokers who work for me, and I'm trying to get a third and I'm working on and for and about setting up another office in a neighboring city.

I chose Finet because it was corporate enough for me (I felt I needed that amount of structure) and overall, I haven't regretted choosing them in the least. (Have a cup, the Kool Ade's fine!)

I'm private branded (I have my own firm name) so if I want to fire Finet (or if they decide they don't want to work with me) I don't have to change the name (having come from where I did, I wanted that flexibility).

I can't say that I know what all the competition has, because I do not. What I will say is that I have not run into a situation where there was no access to the product or service that I felt I needed. Again, coming from a wirehouse, there are plenty of trick of this trade that I never knew about when I was there. It was eyeopening when I came in here years ago and heard the sorts of 15% annuities "plans" people were hatching etc... I'm not about that sort of stuff, I'm plain vanilla stocks and bonds, a few annuities here and there.

The thought when I came was that Prudential (which Wachovia had just purchased) had blown its wad on buying brokers before the bear market and had not spent its money on the Y2K upgrade that the other firms had. What that meant and has meant is that Wachovia was going to have to do an upgrade of its system. Technologically, this firm is very good. Easy to use, easy to learn, very practical.

Stock jocks are at a disadvantage here. The ticket charges, the payouts the fees so on and so forth, it's annoying! Wachovia is not going to go broke on my office that's for damn sure. Still I'm looking at net 70% before my office expenses. So I'm better off than I was at Barney even net net net.

But the beauty is that I can pay a guy a good percentage payout, treat him like a worthwhile human being and still make a good buck off his efforts. It's win win. More than that though, It Is Capitalism. I am building a business here! Something with revenues and profits and a valuation, and borrowing power and good will and identity. A business that is an asset thqat I can leave to my wife and kids if I croak it, that can continue to generate income for me if I'm disabled. An Asset that I can monetize and liquidate if I choose to.

That beats working at a brokerage firm by a mile.

Mr. A

Well said, Mr. A.

Thanks, Indyone.

Mr. A

O.K but 70 % net before your office expenses?? Are you sure about that number?? Shouldn’t it be the other way arounD??

No, it should not be the other way around. FINET pays 90% on fee based, 90% on packaged products and mf trails, 85% on transactional. The more transactions you do, the more $26 ticket charges you pay- that's a way they make money and are transparent about that. As said above- annoying but the price of doing business.

Fee based has an additional charge as well- admin fees. They aggregate down by account balance and are competitive with the competition. At $500k in a managed program you're looking at about 22 bps admin fee.

At the end of the day, profitability on running the book ranges from 70% to 77%. The range is based on what you charge, how your business mix is, and if you manage money yourself or hire a manager (typical equity mgr runs 50-55 bps, fixed income 30-35 bps, and internal managers run 25 bps) You can shadow the internal strategies yourself and save the 25 bps if you're that motivated.

Then the local expenses come in which, if you do it right, will end you up best practice, at a range of fully allocated profitability of 55-65%. Some are higher, some are lower, that's best practice.