Wells Fargo has announced that it will join its wirehouse peers and no longer report its advisor headcount. Notably, the advisor headcount at Wells has been closely scrutinized over the past seven years as the company has sought to rebuild its scandal-entrenched brokerage.
Alois Pirker, founder and CEO of Pirker Partners, a wealth consulting firm, shared that Wells may benefit from not reporting its headcount, given the amount of scandal the company has been through in recent years. Pirker also shared that "what constitutes headcount has blurred in recent years as business lines have merged and warehouses have been integrating bank-based or call center advisors with their traditional sales force."
According to AdvisorHub, Wells Fargo is the last of the four wirehouses to stop reporting its headcount. Earlier this quarter, Wells also stopped disclosing average productivity per advisor. In recent years, Morgan Stanley and UBS have also made similar decisions to conceal their advisor headcounts. Some industry experts suggest this trend may be driven by increased competition among brokerage firms and a desire to avoid comparisons with rivals.
Financial Advisor Transitions consults advisors nationwide to explore employment transition options and to preserve and protect their practice in any transition that they make.
