Brokers Threaten to Bolt Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

There was a recent story about some brokers at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney that caught my eye. Last week, several of the firm’s money managers, who collectively are in charge of tens of billions of client dollars, expressed impatience at a new technology platform the company recently adopted, claiming that it has caused them various inconveniences: trading delays, inaccurate account statements, bounced checks, problems with foreign-currency transactions, etcetera.

The platform is supposed to facilitate market research and the retrieval of client information, but as frequently occurs with new operating systems, the management hasn’t ironed out all the kinks yet. The upshot? The disgruntled advisers are now threatening to leave. In the proverbial huff. Or rather, they’ve written a letter to the management expressing their concerns. Or rather, they’re rumored to have written such a letter, since they haven’t actually sent it yet. As you might guess, lawyers are getting involved.

Management, for its part, has been candid in acknowledging the glitches. They have set up a program to address employee complaints called “We Hear You,” and two senior executives have been assigned to meet with the money managers and work through their difficulties with them. Even the disaffected advisors themselves admit that this is so.

Of course, spats like this raise the question of just how much technology is required to manage a portfolio in the first place. We here at Crossing Wall Street are a decidedly low-tech outfit. We have a few pencils, some pens, a broken stapler, a couple of paper clips and some other stuff. That’s about it. What we mostly do is read; we read company filings and when we can, we find out what a firm’s customers have to say. I wish it were more complicated than that.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge the brokers at Morgan Stanley at all. I’m sure they’re right, and it can be complicated managing all that money. But this tells me that the large firms tend to treat their own employees with the same kind of contempt they treat everyone else. I can’t say I’m surprised.

When asked how the majority of Morgan Stanley’s 17,000 advisers feel about the new tech platform, spokesman James Wiggins seemed to shrug his shoulders. “There is a very large number of financial advisers who are doing just fine,” he said.

Meanwhile, we here at Crossing Wall Street have decided that on the basis of the services we provide our readers, we too deserve a technology upgrade. So if anyone out there has a working stapler, please contact Eddy at….

Posted by on September 3rd, 2012 at 5:25 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.