The combined pool of financial advisers in Orange County grew about 2.7% to 2,022 last year, led by increases at Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments and Raymond James Financial Services Inc.
While Wells Fargo & Co. maintained the top position with the same number as last year, 460, No. 2, Merrill Lynch, added 10 for a total of 250 advisers.
“We hire aggressively. We’re looking for top talent,” said Carole Wentz, who runs the Merrill Lynch operations in Orange County. “We love to hire talent, and we love to train them.”
Wentz said she’s seeking to hire top advisers from other firms, noting that advisers often mean more business for the brokerage, which is owned by Bank of America Corp.
“If we’re down five advisers for a year, that’s not good,” she said. “The more advisers we have serving clients, the more business we’ll do.”
• Notable increases in advisers were at No. 6, Fidelity Investments, which added 10 to reach 80 advisers, and No. 8, Raymond James, which hired eight for a total of 65 advisers.
Industry Changes
In recent years, the industry has shifted from brokers making commissions based on taking stock orders from customers to a fee-based system based on a percentage of the clients’ assets.
Still, since 2010, the Orange County list of firms has increased from 18 to 32, and the number of representatives has climbed 25%.
This week’s list ranks wealth management firms and advisory divisions of financial services companies based on the number of registered representatives in their Orange County operations. Firms must have five registered advisers to make the list.
A registered representative is a licensed professional who trades securities, such as stocks, bonds and options, on behalf of clients for a fee or commission.
Representatives typically work for a broker-dealer company that’s registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. A registered representative is required to pass the Series 7 and Series 63 qualifying examinations.
The list also includes the firms’ number of offices in OC and companywide, though those figures don’t affect the rankings. The 32 firms on the Business Journal’s list combined to employ overall staffs totaling 6,369, up 5.9%.
A total of 14 firms increased their number of registered representatives; three cut representatives, and 15 firms either reported no changes or said 2015 figures were unavailable.
The largest five firms accounted for about 52%, or 1,238, of the registered representatives on the list. The five firms that debuted on the ranking this year added 100 registered representatives to the list total.
Among notable changes are:
• No. 5, Centaurus Financial Inc., in Anaheim, which added eight representatives for a total of 116
• No. 15, D.A. Davidson & Co. of Newport Beach, which increased its advisers by four to 36
• No. 17, First Foundation Advisors of Irvine, which added four advisers for a total of 31
• No. 22, City National Bank in Irvine, which maintained its advisers number at 19 as its staff climbed 18% to 137 employees
• No. 24, B. B. Graham & Co. of Orange, which increased its headcount by three to 16
Oppenheimer & Co. in Newport Beach, which reported a decline from seven representatives to four. Aspiriant LLC of Irvine said its representatives fell from five to two. Neither are on this year’s list.
