Baird Ramps Up Aggressive Campaign Of Recruiting Ex-Smith Barney Advisors Hot

Efforts this spring to recruit Morgan Stanley managers like Dean Cottle in Salt Lake City and Steven Stroker in the Great Lakes have now delivered a fresh batch of producers.

Like Cottle and Stroker, all are from either Smith Barney or, originally, Citi Global Markets. All are in Stroker's neck of the woods and will work in Baird offices across Ohio and Wisconsin.

Reading between the lines, it looks like morale may be riding high at Morgan Stanley, but the mood at Smith Barney -- merged with Morgan in the aftermath of the credit crunch and now being phased out as a separate brand -- looks a lot worse.

On average, the four producers jumping ship had worked about a decade apiece at Citi, Smith Barney, or both.

All joined Morgan in June 2008 and left between May and June of this year.

Baird is aggressively opening new regional branches. Outside Smith Barney, it also picked up a two-advisor team in South Dakota.

Together, the new hires represented $420 million in AUM but only $2.8 million in revenue for Morgan. That's a little low by industry standards, but still nothing to sneeze at.

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