Janney reeled in 43 new advisors in 2020

Janney Montgomery Scott’s aggressive recruiting efforts during the pandemic landed the company 43 new advisors by year-end 2020.

While many companies shut their doors and sent their employees home to work when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., Janney determined early on to keep its offices open. To do so, it has put in place many requirements across its more than 100 branches across the country to comply with local regulations, which vary by state and city.

Janney credits offering the choice as a major selling point to the advisors it onboarded. The company upped its recruiting package as well, which likely contributed some appeal.

The broker-dealer’s hiring success in such an unstable year underscores how advisors continued to join new firms and repaper their clients in 2020 industrywide, despite unprecedented market volatility and a wide shift to remote work and client interaction.

In late November, Jerry Lombard, president of the Private Client Group, said the company was on track to bring on about 50 advisors by the end of the year. The final tally was marginally lower, which the company attributes to advisors moving their onboarding dates.

“We had FAs push back their start date to January,” a company spokesman said in an email, adding that it happens frequently.

Advisors continued to make career moves despite a pandemic that has battered the U.S. economy and left many families grieving the death of loved ones.

In the independent broker-dealer sector alone, more than 300 advisors switched firms in 2020, according to recruiting moves tracked by Financial Planning. Companies including Morgan Stanley are seeing their headcount bulge, even as advisors move forward with plans to open their own firms and move to the independent channel.

At Janney, advisor credits were up 7% from the year prior at the end of November — a welcome cushion that helped make up for the firm’s drop in interest revenue, a financial pain point shared by broker-dealers across the industry.