Brooke’s Note: Perhaps no advisory custodian has tinkered as much with its business model as Ameriprise over the past decade. The Minneapolis-based company spun off from American Express in 2005 and since then it has continued to evolve. The company is now focusing on winning breakaway brokers at times using its franchise model and, at others, its employee model. The solutions to finding the right admixture has at times upset some of its existing franchisees or captive employees if they feel that new policies work against their interests. But as this article about the formation of McGill, Harvey & Associates shows, Ameriprise’s franchise system can still be highly effective for attracting — and satisfying — solid wirehouse talent.
In late 2008, when H.A. McGill began to seriously consider breaking away from Smith Barney, he was looking at other broker-dealers that were brand names, but were small enough to provide a responsive style of oversight. At the top of his list: Raymond James, Stifel Nicolaus, Capitol Securities and Janney Montgomery.
But he was leaving no stone unturned. So he reached out to some old friends, who, via a series of acquisitions, had ended up at Ameriprise, the big Minneapolis-based financial planning company.
What he heard surprised him – and then convinced him.