Kaye/Bassman's Tim White Quoted in Investment News Article, "Brokers await BofA's next move on wealth management."

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Kaye/Bassman's Tim White Quoted in Investment News Article, "Brokers await BofA's next move on wealth management."

Dallas, Texas, 9/19/2011:

In early summer, before layoffs began sweeping across Wall Street, billboard-sized photos of employees were plastered on the walls, pillars and elevator banks of Credit Suisse Group AG's offices in the United States and abroad.

The museum-quality prints, depicting workers from administrative assistants to senior executives, were emblazoned with motivational words like "Proactive" and "Partner." By mid-July, however, the photos disappeared and the Swiss banking giant began laying off 2,000 employees.

Security guards prevented employees from taking cell-phone pictures as the posters were stripped away, according to one employee who was present.

"It sent an entirely wrong message," said an employee, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Management literally threw away that kind of money on something so trivial, while planning to cut thousands of jobs."

A bank spokeswoman declined to comment on the internal campaign or the employee's comments.

Credit Suisse's timing illustrates the unanticipated dangers of rampant job-cutting, which tend to run in cycles on Wall Street. Employee morale often plummets at a time when survivors are asked to pick up more responsibility and customer relations can suffer as service and relationships deteriorate.

What's more, layoffs inartfully constructed can come across to shareholders as Band-Aid solutions that at best temporarily cut expenses and at worst pare away reserves of talented people.

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"They finished cutting the fat and now they're into the muscle and bone," said Tim White, a managing partner who specializes in wealth management at the recruiting firm Kaye/Bassman International in Dallas.

“Merrill Lynch brokers get up every day and say a little prayer: "Let this be the day we get spun off from Bank of America.'” —

A longtime Merrill Lynch financial adviser Bank of America Merrill Lynch brokers might want to pray a little longer and a lot harder after last week's sacking of Sallie Krawcheck, who headed BofA's wealth management division. To some analysts and observers, the move signals a renewed effort on the part of the nation's largest bank to further integrate Merrill Lynch and get its 16,000 brokers to cross-sell more bank products, something that most have resisted up to now. (See full story on cross-selling.) “Cross-selling has to be a focus at Bank of America,” said Alois Pirker, a senior analyst at Aite Group LLC. “If it isn't, why would they combine the two firms to begin with?”

As part of the new management structure, Merrill brokers now fall under the purview of David Darnell, who was named co-chief operating officer in charge of all consumer business. He comes from the banking side of BofA. Cross-selling should work both ways, with brokers not only selling bank products to clients but also getting leads from the bank to build their advisory practices, Mr. Pirker said. “[BofA] has about 10% of deposits in the U.S.

There's a huge opportunity to pick advisory clients from the pool, and we haven't seen much of that yet,” he said. One Merrill adviser, who asked not to be identified, said that he has yet to receive any referrals from the bank that have led to new business for him. “The only ones getting the legitimate leads are the bank brokers. There's just not enough leads to affect me,” he said. Although this adviser reserves judgment on the recent restructuring, he isn't very optimistic. “The downside of [Mr. Darnell] is that he's a banker. If he plans on putting more pressure on us to sell banking products, people will leave,” the adviser said.

An even bigger concern among the advisers is compensation and whether the bank will try to move them onto a salary/bonus structure. The present system is based on fees and commissions, and is directly tied to the amount of business generated. “New hires and Merrill Lynch brokers under $500K [in production] could be on salary and bonus pretty quickly,” said Tim White, managing partner of recruiting firm Kaye/ Bassman International Corp. “It would drive out some existing brokers from the firm.”

Read the full story.

About Kaye/Bassman
Founded in 1981, Kaye/Bassman has grown to become the largest single-site executive search and recruitment firm in the United States with the simple mission of impacting companies and enhancing careers by providing the finest in professional, executive, technical and scientific search. Kaye/Bassman provides strategic recruiting and executive search solutions in over 20 industry practice areas including construction recruiting, healthcare recruiting, banking executive search, energy recruitment and many more. Next Level Recruiting Training, a recruiting training organization, Next Level Exchange, a recruiting training best practices information exchange, and Next Level Marketing Communications are also Kaye/Bassman companies.

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Source: http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110911/REG/309119973&cslet=UnhOY2lLWDlKdk9kK2pjMXNkbTdUZmxxcCtmcXRtWT0=

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Kaye/Bassman's Tim White Quoted in Investment News Article, "Brokers await BofA's next move on wealth management."

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