Merrill Lifer Managing $250 Million Signs Up with RBC
A New Jersey broker who had spent his 24-year career with Merrill Lynch shifted last week to RBC Wealth Management, expressing irritation with the firm’s Bank of America parentage.
David Hollenberg and two client associates joined the Florham Park, N.J., branch of Royal Bank of Canada’s U.S. broker-dealer, RBC said on Tuesday. He had been managing $250 million of client assets at Merrill’s nearby branch in Wayne, according to RBC.“I didn’t leave Merrill Lynch,” Hollenberg said. “I left Bank of America.”
He declined to elaborate, but Merrill renegades often cite pressure to cross-sell bank products, cede less affluent customers to Merrill Edge and other constraints that contrast with the broker-centric culture that they say characterized the firm prior to the 2009 Bank of America merger.
The bank this year imprinted itself more firmly on its wealth management businesses by re-christening its U.S. Trust private banking unit and relegating the Merrill name to sub-brand status.
Critiques of the changing culture are usually may privately, but one advisor who joined Stifel Nicolaus earlier this year summarized the changing culture succinctly. “I’m a financial advisor,” he said. “I don’t want to hand out toasters.”
A Merrill spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment on Hollenberg’s remarks, and the firm previously declined to comment on the sentiments about the bank.
Two weeks ago another New Jersey team whose principal advisors had each been with Merrill for over three decades joined UBS Financial Services in Red Bank.
RBC Wealth Management-U.S. employs around 1,800 brokers in 200 offices in the U.S. Merrill as of the end of March had 14,761 advisors.
Another day another defection
Good on you Jersey, way to achieve escape velocity.
Semper Fi, Spunk!
Spanky!
Spanky- Hope all is well. Semper Fi
If you evaluate the standings of the old Merrill versus “Merrill” under BofA, you can not rationally reach any conclusion other than they are in trouble. No longer #1 in total advisors. No longer #1 in advisor productivity. Not #1 in advisory assets. Same with alternative placements/assets under management. There is just no bright spot from the FA perspective. From the BofA perspective, they are executing on the business plan of penetrating the wallet with bank products and services, which makes sense for them. Sux for the FA.
I love waking up and seeing another big FA leave ‘Charlie Foxtrot’ Merrill – This place is just a big, embarrassing, unethical, nightmare (especially in the Atlanta office) and seeing these big producers bail one after another, just reconfirms it….
Congrats to you Mr. Hollenberg for breaking the inertia of 24 years. Hard to believe the lousy BofA corp gift for “Quarter Century Club” members wasn’t a big enough deal to make you stay another year!
“……and relegating the Merrill name to sub-brand status.”
Not only “sub-brand status” but the brand name “Merrill” is now used by BOTH the former “Merrill Edge” online discount unit AND the traditional Advisor branch office system. Clients can’t see any differentiation, especially now that “Self-Directed” reps are in branch offices.
If you’re a ML rep wake up, you are being disintermediated.
Living in fear. Morale at an all time low. We are in a bull market, but it feels like death at Merrill Lynch offices. Only one smiling are the mid tier brokers who are inheriting books. Why are they in protocol? Because they want you to leave. I haven’t heard any meaningful broker recruited to Merrill. So why stay in protocol? – Casey
As I review comments on this site I am amused. No firm gets more negative comments than my firm, Merrill, and yes a division of BofA. I have interviewed about every firm on the street to make sure I am giving my clients the best opportunity for success as well as my family over the last 30 years including the last 3 years, and I can tell you for a fact, there is not a compelling reason to put my clients through a move. I love the “pitch” that the competing firms are like ML 10 years ago. That firm will not be able to compete now or in 3 years. As far as client perception, I am bringing in more new clients and assets in the last 5 years from RIAs and traditional competitors than ever before, maybe because I give toasters away w checking accounts as one of my friends said. Maybe if the advisor would take his own advice, he/she would not need the check to “reset” his personal situation. We are all are just trying to do the best we can for our clients and family, maybe you should give us tenured 50 years olds the benefit of doubt that maybe we may have it figured out why to stay with the bull even though it has a checking account ring in his nose. Again, I am amused and quite frankly, glad that you aren’t getting it and living in the past. And yes Ron, I will take your call in the future to make sure I don’t go on salary. By the way, billion plus in assets, $5 myn in pcs, and never bought a book or inherited a book. Moral is just fine in the bull pen.
Indy, you are clearly out of touch. Any advisor that is doing any real production is not happy. If for what ever reason you are content, so be it. You are the minority. To say that mother Merrill is still the best firm out there is being naive. You clearly haven’t any real friends in the business outside Merrill to make a fair analysis. Technology has caught up with the regional and independent firms. In terms of what’s best for clients? Choices are best for clients, and at Merrill today you are limited. There was a time you can offer 10 different annuities at Merrill. You are down to four because of the “Pay to Play rule at Merrill. Enjoy your retirement, you deserve it. Whomever inherits your book will clearly leave in five years when his or her contract is up.
Out of respect to your profession as a recruiter, I get where you are coming from. Never did I say Merrill is the best firm out there. I said I did not find a reason to disrupt my clients lives. If you are a annuity producer there are many better payout choices for you but I am not nor do “most” of my clients need that product. As far as being naive, maybe, but bringing home 2 to 3 myn a year let’s me afford to live in that bubble. I don’t know if I will retire at Merrill in 15 to 20 years or who I will transition my practice to and what they will do w it in 5 years. Point is that some of us has it figured out in world of Merrill at the moment and it’s not like what is being posted here. Best of luck to you.
Indy, I am not a recruiter, however I did use a recruiter when I left Merrill two years ago. I still have many friends who work there on many levels. It’s not the same. When you have the top tier advisors leaving( most were lifers) , it speaks volume. Merrill management use to have a deep bench. There all gone and your left with empty suits. Heck even Andy fired his brother. If you love it so much why were you interviewing with other firms? You must have felt something was wrong. Good luck
Someone is drinking the B of A Kool-Aid !!! Good luck with team grid next year!
B of A dumpster fire leaders are dishonest at their core starting with Moynihan. Merrill’s middle management will lie when the truth would sound better and soon the only people left there will be book inheritors and legacy bank advisors. Oh and don’t let me forget the salaried edge guys who seem to be spreading like the ivy on my back fence.