RayJay Nabs Million-Dollar Morgan Stanley Team from Leaky Boca Raton Branch
The second pair of million-dollar brokers in ten days has left a Morgan Stanley branch in Boca Raton, Florida, to join a competitor, signaling the dissipating effect of the wirehouse’s departure from the Protocol for Broker Recruiting on broker mobility.
Stacey Englander, a nearly five-decade industry veteran, joined Raymond James Financial’s employee-channel branch on Thursday along with her younger partner Shane M. O’Brien. The team produced around $1.3 million of fees and commissions for Morgan Stanley in the previous 12 months, according to sources familiar with their practice.
Their exit followed that of Steven A. Rodman and Robert A. DeBlasio to Wells Fargo Advisors in Boca Raton on February 15, a day when Morgan Stanley lost at least five brokers cumulatively producing $7.5 million in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi to rival firms. The Rodman-DeBlasio team worked at the “Technology Way” Morgan Stanley branch that had housed Englander and O’Brien.
Englander, who started her brokerage career at L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin in 1970 and did stints at Bear, Stearns, Gruntal, Advest, and Janney Montgomery Scott before joining Morgan Stanley in early 2012, did not return a call for comment on her exit. O’Brien, whose 12-year career began at Smith Barney and also included two years at Voya Financial, had been with Morgan Stanley since 2015. The pair got to know each other through a Morgan Stanley “mentorship program,” according to their Raymond James webpage that was posted on Friday.
Raymond James in the past year has recruited ten brokers from Morgan Stanley to offices in its South Florida complex, which extends from North Palm Beach to Key West. The recruits included a $3 million team last September and a $1.5 million group in West Palm Beach in October. The RayJay complex is run by Bert White, a former Morgan Stanley manager who left the wirehouse in February 2017.
RayJay last month hired veteran Morgan Stanley branch manager Bill Drew in Boston to oversee its expanding Southern New England complex, days after recruiting a $4.5 million team in Birmingham, Michigan, from UBS Financial Services.
Morgan Stanley and UBS left the Protocol in late 2017, creating challenges for brokers who run the risk of not being able to immediately solicit former clients when they join rival firms. Morgan Stanley filed a flurry of requests for temporary restraining orders and arbitration complaints early last year, but has retreated from litigation recently as brokers receive counseling from their new firms on staying within the confines of their former employment agreements.
UBS imposes solicitation restrictions on departing brokers who owe balances on promissory note bonuses and has attempted to tighten the reins on brokers who leave after accepting performance bonuses.
Morgan Stanley has not to date pursued the southern Florida emigrees to Raymond James, said a person familiar with the hires.
A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman confirmed this week’s exits of Englander and O’Brien, but declined further comment.
One day Morgan Stanley will realize that leaving Protocol was a dumb idea! Why go where you cant leave?
Apparently you can.
One day the Board of Directors will realize that James Gorman is clueless about running an Investment Bank. MS keeps losing FA’s faster than they can replace as the infrastructure is a disaster.