RJ and Makay

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On Wall Street magazine has compiled the compensation plans of the large wirehouses and regional firms to see what’s in store for advisors at those firms.  Annual production rankings measured firms at various levels of production from $200,000 to $1 million.  The 2012 compensation story is more than the rankings or the team-based awards.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney scored highest for best practices in every category, in a new study released by Cerulli Associates called “Managed Accounts: Asset Manager Distribution Roadmap.” The study rates specific sponsors based on certain characteristics that make them more or less attractive to managers looking for access or wanting to grow assets on their platforms.

The characteristics being rated include momentum, total asset growth and size, and growth of advisor force.  This rating of sponsors is also known as Cerulli’s “Opportunity Index” because asset managers can use it as a framework to prioritize sponsor-discretionary platforms and advisor-directed platforms. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is followed by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Advisors and UBS.  RBC Wealth Management ranked number five on the list, primarily due to its successful recruiting of wirehouse advisors, to whom it gave managed account programs similar to the ones they had at the firms they left.