In rebuke of Wall Street, Raymond James, William Blair and Stifel help form non-wirehouse advocacy group to 'shed baggage' but not without a suitcase of SIFMA ideals

The old regional firm Roundtable (Wheat First, Alex Brown, Robinson Humphrey, Advest, Butcher & Singer, Blunt Ellis Loewi, William Blair, Dain, Rauscher Pierce, Foster Marshall, Raymond James, Bateman Eichler, Boettcher, Sutro, Prescott Ball &Turpin, Morgan Keegan, AG Edwards, Edward D Jones, DA Davidson, Chicago Company, and a few others) were uniquely client centric in ways foreign to Wall Street. Wells Fargo built out of a series of Wheat First acquisitions now is comprised largely of these firms with Raymond James acquiring a few. The unique aspect of these firms is that they retained their local identity and were dominant in municipal finance and were a very powerful distribution syndicate in corporate finance. They were very concerned about the well being of their clients and their communities and were good corporate citizens. That connectivity with the consumer has been lost when it is most needed today to advance fiduciary duty. What is troubling is that many of these firms today are the most aggressive opponents to fiduciary duty when in fact their devotion to the client’s best interest years ago is an important part of their DNA and is what made them great. A lot of pride in building a “quality firm” is now transferred to RIAs who now hold the high ground. RIAs will have similar success to the old regional firm roundtable as the client’s best interest is their driving force. Perhaps the Zero Alpha Group or other assemblages of high level RIAs with extraordinary technical competency can emerge as the client centric alternative to Wall Street to advance professional standing in the client’s best interest—triggering massive market share and industry redefining market leadership. Roll-ups have largely ignored fiduciary duty creating a vacuum that needs to be filled.

SCW
Stephen Winks